Team Fortress 2: Haberdashery Secrets

I don't believe we've yet posted about the most recent Team Fortress 2 patch. Y'know, the one with the mysterious 50-item backpack and new slot for head items. SECRETS!

The reaction to this strong hint of future collectables seemed to be half "ooh!" and half "uh-oh", but until now there hasn't been much word on exactly what these new toys would be for. Hints are trickling in...

Shacknews is first to wheedle info out of Valve, and even though the cards/chest axis remains pretty tight the picture's a fair bit clearer. In a partial nutshell:

- the new head items will be purely cosmetic, rather than grant an upper hand to people who've played the game for far too long. Funny hats! Funny hats! All games are improved by funny hats. HAT-FACT.
- These will be unlockables unassociated with achievements - unlike previous unlocks. So less of this kind of horror, hopefully.
- Items that offer more than aesthetic changes are in the pipeline too.

And a bunch of other fascinating/puzzling info-nuggets about TF2's future. It'd be ungentlemanly to reduce the entire interview to bullet points here, so go read.

There's also a thorough investigation into various hidden variables of the new backpack and a few of the hat names over at Ubercharged. Go go facthunters!