Engineer Update

This article is for content released in the update. For the patch itself, see July 8, 2010 Patch.

“

Say you have two things: a perfectly good hand, and a brilliant inventor for a grandfather. One day you stumble across a blueprint for an amazing-as-hell robot hand meant to replace an arm-stump. Wait, you have three things: the hand, the grandfather, and a saw.

— TF2 Official Blog

”

The Engineer Update was a major content update focusing on the Engineer. The update was announced on July 5, 2010, and was released in the July 8, 2010 Patch.

Rather than announcing new content for the update regularly, new content was announced every time 25 Golden Wrenches were found.^[1] With 100 Wrenches to be found in total, there were 4 announcements prior to the final release of the update.

Background

Golden Wrench

The Golden Wrench is a Wrench replacement for the Engineer. It has the same damage and capabilities as the regular Wrench, but turns all the enemies it kills to solid golden statues.

The Golden Wrench is allegedly made of Australium. It could only be obtained through Crafting, having a very small chance to appear as the result of any crafting attempt. Only 100 Golden Wrenches were randomly awarded to players through crafting. While the Golden Wrench has been in the game's items since July 1, 2010, Golden Wrenches only started dropping on July 4, 2010. The last Golden Wrench was found on July 8, 2010, and it is no longer obtainable. A listing of everyone who found a Golden Wrench may be found here.

Announcements

The Engineer Update page officially begun on July 5, 2010, as announced on the TF2 Official Blog post "Engineer Update: Day One". The update was released on July 8.

Day 1: The Golden Wrenches and the Frontier Justice were announced.
Day 2: The Wrangler and the map Upward were announced. The Engineer achievements were also later added to the Update page.
Day 3: The map Hightower was announced. The Southern Hospitality was mentioned, but with no details. Also, the Gunslinger and the ability to move buildings were both teased through hidden pages.
Day 4: The Gunslinger and the map Thunder Mountain were announced.

The community-made map Coldfront was also added in the patch, but not mentioned by Valve.

Additions

Weapons

Engineer		Frontier Justice
		Wrangler
		Southern Hospitality
		Gunslinger
		Golden Wrench

Maps

Name	Game mode	File name
Coldfront	Control Point	`cp_coldfront`
Hightower	Payload Race	`plr_hightower`
Thunder Mountain	Payload	`pl_thundermountain`
Upward	Payload	`pl_upward`

Pre-announcement references

While officially announced on July 5, 2010, numerous references had been made by Valve prior to the release.

Repair Node (scrapped)

On March 2, 2010, Valve published a post on the TF2 Official Blog, Dammit dammit dammit dammit!, describing an idea for a new Engineer building, the Repair Node. The idea was rejected after playtesting.

The Repair Node reappeared in the video which accompanied the 119th update.

A blueprint of the Repair Node appears on the Engineer Update site, with the text "...R WORK" visibly written over it, and then a different view of the same blueprint, on the hidden Radigan page, saying "..LL NEVER W...". It seems likely the full text reads "WILL NEVER WORK" or "IT'LL NEVER WORK".

119th Update

On May 5, 2010, as part of the 119th update, Valve released a 27-second teaser for the Engineer update. The teaser contains many things that may be hints about the Engineer's unlockable weapons.

Instant teleport (scrapped)

In an interview, Robin Walker discussed a cut and unnamed Engineer building, referred to by the community as the Instant teleport, that would immediately teleport the Engineer back to his teleporter exit.

Mac Update

The Engineer, holding the Frontier Justice

On June 11, 2010, Valve released the Mac Update, accompanied by a video showing the Engineer holding the Frontier Justice in the video, which had not yet been announced at the time.

Screenshot from Robin Walker

Upward

On June 27, 2010, Valve sent an in-game screenshot to the Apocalypse Gaming Community as a thank-you present for hosting the Battle of Both Worlds event. The screenshot was accompanied by the following message by Robin Walker: "We didn't give you a photo of us signing. After some conversation here, we decided that a more fun way to prove that you did get the shirts from us is to give you something about the upcoming Engineer Update that could only have come from us. Please find this something attached."

This picture teased what could be a new map, later revealed to be Upward. It also shows the Engineer with his toolcase on his shoulder, teasing the building-moving mechanic.

Golden Wrench

On July 1, 2010, Valve released a patch adding a new melee weapon for the Engineer: the Golden Wrench.

Loose Canon

On July 2, 2010, the Loose Canon comic was published, sparking speculation that the start of the Engineer Update had begun.

Trivia

On July 5, 2010, moments before the Update's official announcement, Shawn posted an announcement to the official Team Fortress 2 Steam group entitled "link" which consisted of random text linking to the official Engineer Update page.
During the Engineer Update, the "Smelt Reclaimed Metal" and "Smelt Refined Metal" blueprints were disabled to prevent players from smelting and unsmelting metal rapidly in an attempt to find a Golden Wrench.
- They were not re-enabled until months after the fact with the release of the Mann-Conomy Update.
The banner of the update page altered to indicate the update's progression.
- Along with a gauge representing the number of Golden Wrenches found, a lightbulb would be lit for every milestone. On release day, all lightbulbs were lit.
In Day One of the Engineer Update, several yellowed photos referencing the Storyline of Team Fortress 2 can be seen, such as a huge Australium nugget, several newspapers, the 1850s mercenaries, Radigan Conagher testing the old TFC Wrench, the assembled TFC Mercenaries, an 1850s Sentry Gun and Payload Cart, a dartboard showing a Australian boxing a Kangaroo, several ideas to save Abraham Lincoln if he had not died, The Map of Mann's Land, a crossed out picture of the Repair Node, several photos showing Top Hats and at the bottom, a picture showing the TFC Engineer and the young Engineer trying on his very first pair of goggles, as well as a newspaper from the WAR! Update.
A sketch of a Robo-Scout from the Mann vs. Machine game mode can be seen in the initial update page, based off the Vitruvian Man as drawn by Leonardo da Vinci.