Avatars

Avatar Contributions

An avatar refers to a 512x512 image visible in one's Steam Community page. Avatars have no effect on gameplay, and are intended to identify and differentiate players within the Steam Community. In-game, each player's avatar is visible next to his/her name on the scoreboard. If a player is killed, when the freeze frame of their killer appears, their avatar will be shown alongside their name. If the killer is one of the player's Steam Community Friends then a buddy icon is shown next to their avatar.

Although there are no official guidelines on selecting an avatar, many servers will kick or even ban players with offensive/racist/pornographic avatars.

Official Avatars

One of Robin Walker's avatars that started the ÜberCharged avatar fad.

On July 15, 2009, Valve introduced a set of official Team Fortress 2-themed avatars, these avatars are close up pictures of all nine classes. Then on September 16, 2009, they introduced a second set which were all the classes looking angry and ÜberCharged, these ÜberCharged ones were inspired by an avatar fad started by avatars used by Valve employees.

In total there are nine sets of avatars, where each class have 3 different avatars each.

In the 'Contribute!' section of the Team Fortress 2 Blog, custom made avatars may be submitted to a site where it will be seen in a gallery along with other avatar contributions.