Unusual

Unusual Napper's Respite
Level 73 Hat
Effect: Circling Heart
After a long day of burning scouts.

“

There is nothing unusual about this man's head! Click to listen — The Soldier

”

Unusual quality is an item quality used on hats and some miscellaneous items with a special attached particle effect. There are currently 728 items that can have one of 48 total effects. The only methods of obtaining an Unusual item are by potentially unlocking a Mann Co. Supply Crate with a Mann Co. Supply Crate Key or via trading. The chances of uncrating an Unusual item are about one in one hundred and fifty, or 0.66%. Unlike regular items which can only be obtained from specific crates, any Unusual item with any particle effect can be randomly obtained from any given crate of any Series.

Due to their unique particle effect decorations and their extremely low probability of being obtained from crates, Unusual items are considered to be some of the rarest items in TF2.

The hexadecimal color code for Unusual items is #8650AC.

Other Unusual items

Two special items of Unusual quality were introduced with the Scream Fortress Update: the Haunted Metal Scrap, and the Horseless Headless Horsemann's Headtaker. However, unlike regular Unusual items, the Unusual Metal Scrap is dropped for any player who has taken part in defeating the Horseless Headless Horsemann with a melee weapon, while the Headtaker can be obtained by crafting it from a blueprint that includes the Unusual Metal Scrap. Besides bearing the Unusual quality, the Horseless Headless Horsemann's Headtaker is statistically identical to the Eyelander. In addition, neither of these items has an attached particle effect. Due to these characteristics, these two Unusual items are not considered as valuable as regular Unusual items.

Unusual effects

See also: Particle effects

The first 14 effects were added to the game with the Mann-Conomy Update, 8 more unusual effects were added with the August 18, 2011 Patch, and 7 additional effects were added with the June 19, 2013 Patch. These Unusual effects can be obtained from any Crate, except the Robocrate.

• 

  Green Confetti

• Unusual purple Confetti.png

  Purple Confetti

• Unusual Ghost.png

  Haunted Ghosts

• Unusual green energy glow.png

  Green Energy

• Unusual purple energy.png

  Purple Energy

• Unusual tf2logo.png

  Circling TF Logo

• Unusual Flies.png

  Massed Flies

• Unusual Chieftain's Challenge normal burning fire effect.png

  Burning Flames

• Unusual Green Flame Effect.png

  Scorching Flames

• Unusual plasma effect 2.png

  Searing Plasma

• Vivid Plasma.png

  Vivid Plasma

• Unusual sunbeam.png

  Sunbeams

• Unusual Peace.png

  Circling Peace Sign

• Unusual Heart Effect.png

  Circling Heart

• 

  Bubbling

• 

  Steaming

• 

  Orbiting Fire

• 

  Orbiting Planets

• 

  Nuts n' Bolts

• 

  Smoking

• 

  Stormy Storm

• 

  Blizzardy Storm

• 

  Aces High (RED)

• 

  Aces High (BLU)

• 

  Cloud 9

• 

  Dead Presidents

• 

  Disco Beat Down

• 

  Kill-a-Watt

• 

  Miami Nights

• 

  Terror-Watt

Halloween Special

There are 4 more Halloween-only effects were added with the Very Scary Halloween Special, 5 with the Spectral Halloween Special, and 8 with Scream Fortress 2013. Those can only be obtained during Halloween events.

• Unusual Cloudy Full Moon.png

  Cloudy Moon

• Unusual Orbiting Dark Fire.png

  Eerie Orbiting Fire

• Unusual Orbiting Jack O' Lantern.png

  Flaming Lantern

• Unusual Green Bubbles.png

  Cauldron Bubbles

• Cloudy knives.PNG

  Knifestorm

• Misty skull.PNG

  Misty Skull

• Cloudy green.PNG

  Harvest Moon

• Cloud skull.PNG

  It's A Secret To Everybody

• Purple cloud skull.PNG

  Stormy 13th Hour

• Unusual arcana.png

  Arcana

• Unusual spellbound.png

  Spellbound

• Unusual hellfire.png

  Hellfire

• Unusual darkblaze.png

  Darkblaze

• Unusual demonflame.png

  Demonflame

• Unusual somethingburningthiswaycomes.png

  Something Burning This Way Comes

• Unusual poisonedshadows.png

  Poisoned Shadows

• Unusual chiropteraveneta.png

  Chiroptera Venenata

Robotic Boogaloo

The Robotic Boogaloo Update added 10 Community-created unusual effects. Items with these effects can only be obtained by unlocking the RoboCrate.

• 

  Anti-Freeze

• 

  Roboactive

• 

  Time Warp

• 

  Green Black Hole

• 

  Memory Leak

• 

  Overclocked

• 

  Power Surge

• 

  Electrostatic

• 

  Sulphurous

• 

  Phosphorous

Update history

September 30, 2010 Patch (Mann-Conomy Update)

• [Undocumented] Added Unusual quality.

August 18, 2011 Patch (Manno-Technology Bundle)

• [Undocumented] Added Stormy Storm, Blizzardy Storm, Nuts n' Bolts, Orbiting Planets, Orbiting Fire, Bubbling, Smoking, and Steaming unusual effects.

August 23, 2011 Patch

• Fixed sunbeams effect.

October 27, 2011 Patch (Very Scary Halloween Special)

• [Undocumented] Added Cloudy Moon, Eerie Orbiting Fire, Flaming Lantern, and Cauldron Bubbles unusual effects.

October 26, 2012 Patch (Spectral Halloween Special)

• [Undocumented] Added Knifestorm, Misty Skull, Harvest Moon, It's A Secret To Everybody and Stormy 13th Hour unusual effects.

May 17, 2013 Patch (Robotic Boogaloo)

• [Undocumented] Added Anti-Freeze, Electrostatic, Green Black Hole, Memory Leak, Overclocked, Phosphorous, Power Surge, Roboactive, Suplurous, and Time Warp unusual effects.

June 5, 2013 Patch

• Attachment point and offset for particle effects on unusual hats can now be adjusted from the character loadout screen.
• Fixed a bug that would cause unusual effects to float in the air over dead players.
• Fixed a bug that would cause unusual effects to show incorrectly sometimes when spectating other players.

June 19, 2013 Patch

• [Undocumented] Added Aces High, Cloud 9, Dead Presidents, Disco Beat Down, Kill-a-Watt, Miami Nights, and Terror-Watt unusual effects.

October 29, 2013 Patch (Scream Fortress 2013)

• [Undocumented] Added Arcana, Chiroptera Venenata, Darkblaze, Demonflame, Hellfire, Poisoned Shadows, Something Burning This Way Comes, and Spellbound unusual effects.

December 20, 2013 Patch

• Unusual effect positioning can now be adjusted for all Cosmetic-slot items.
• Unusual Circling Effects have been given a new origin.
• Unusual effects for all Cosmetic-slot items are now visible in the loadout panel and character HUD.

Unused content

These effects were added to the game, but unused.

• 

  'Beany green'

• 

  'Beany hearts'

• 

  'Beany target'

• 

  'Beany tf'

• Fetti spray.png

  'Spray confetti'

• Unusual orbitskull.png

  Orbiting Skull

• 

  Orbiting Cloudy Full Moon

• 

  Orbiting Shells

• Unusual sparkles.png

  Sparkles

• 

  Blood Rain

• Unusual baloon.png

  Balloon

• Unusual orbit.png

  Asteroids

• Unusual orbit lantern nofire.png

  Orbiting Lantern

• Unusual spark green.png

  Green Sparks

• Unusual spark orange.png

  Orange Sparks

• Unusual zap.png

  Zap

Trivia

• The effect named "It's A Secret To Everybody" is a reference to a popular phrase in the video game series The Legend of Zelda.
• The effect named "Something Burning This Way Comes" references the fantasy horror novel by the name Something Wicked This Way Comes by Ray Bradbury; the title is itself a reference to the Shakespeare piece Macbeth.
• The effect named "Dead Presidents" references a slang term used to describe U.S. currency. This is due to the fact that dollar bills usually depict deceased U.S. Presidents.
• The effect named "Spellbound" could be a possible reference to the Alfred Hitchcock film Spellbound.

See also

• Hats
• Particle effects