Scout Update

This article is for content released in the update. For the patch itself, see February 24, 2009 Patch.

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Balancing his replacement weapon has been very tricky due to large threat difference of the Scout between skilled and non-skilled hands.

— TF2 Official Blog

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The Scout Update was the fourth major content update for Team Fortress 2.

Focus for the Scout Update was placed on the offense class, the Scout. Thirty-five new achievements were released, and three achievement milestones which serve to unlock the three new weapons that came alongside them. While the Scout Update lacked a new entry in the popular Meet the Team series, the Scout gained several unique voice responses to his new weapons and gameplay events. Three community-created maps were made official due to their outstanding quality as well. Included amongst these are Egypt, an attack/defense control point map that is set in the desert sands of Egypt, North Africa. With heavy focus on vertical spaces and long, open sight lines, the arena map Watchtower was selected to be made official as well. As a tight, industrial contrast to Watchtower, Junction was released at the request of the community. A large patch was made to the existing map Fastlane with the Scout Update as well.

While the Scout Update carried on the day-by-day release system previously used by the Heavy Update, it also began a trend of community influence through a voting system to determine the unlock order of the weapons through achievement milestones. The Scout Update has been the only class-specific update to allow the community to pick the weapon unlock order, likely because a number of Scout achievements were weapon neutral.

The Scout Update was released in the February 24, 2009 Patch.

Additions

Weapons

Scout		Force-A-Nature
		Bonk! Atomic Punch
		Sandman

Maps

Name	Game mode	File name
Watchtower	Arena	`arena_watchtower`
Junction	Control Point	`cp_junction`
Fastlane (large patch)	Control Point	`cp_fastlane`
Egypt	Control Point	`cp_egypt`

Trivia

Fans that mailed in the coupons would later receive gifts in the mail from Valve as a reward for their devotion. These gifts included a letter from Saxton Hale, which was the first look at his character, as well as a keychain of a random class.
- The letter from Saxton Hale featured the then-unreleased Ambassador amongst a list of Mann Co. products. This was another of several hints to the upcoming Sniper vs. Spy Update.
Pipeline appears on the day 3 page, as the backdrop for the Bonk! Atomic Punch publicity page, but would not be released until the Sniper vs. Spy Update.
The Force-A-Nature could originally cause great knockback with minimal damage dealt or pellets connected, and disguised enemy Spies were affected.
Bonk! Atomic Punch originally had a cooldown after the invulnerability wore off. This cooldown slowed the Scout to the speed of a Heavy for several seconds. This was offset by a shorter resupply time. This slowdown was originally linked to the Retire the Runner achievement, which is now achieved with Crit-A-Cola. Crit-a-Cola was added to the game in the same patch that changed the cooldown function for Bonk! Atomic Punch.
The Sandman was very different when released than the current incarnation.
- The Sandman would completely stop player movement when they were stunned, from any distance.
- The Sandman originally had the ability to stun players that were Übercharged.
- The Sandman left the Scout without his second jump, instead of incurring a health penalty.
- The Sandman originally did 50% less damage against opponents that weren't stunned.