July 2025 Update

Hello everyone, here is a quick log to explain how Gold Rush is doing as of July 2025, and what players can expect going forward.

What’s Done So Far?

For the last few months we’ve been transitioning to the new TF2 SDK Base, a process that is now complete. This means that the next time you play a new build of Gold Rush, you can expect a much more responsive experience, with support for all official base TF2 game modes and maps—KOTH, PL, PLR, Arena, and more. It’s a big leap forward from what’s currently available in the public build, and it feels a hell of a lot better to play now.

After weeks and weeks, the inventory and item system (including hats) is also now fully functional and mostly complete. We’re now mainly focused on bugfixing, balancing, and visual polish–and still correcting the occasional modern UI or gameplay element we notice.

Unfortunately, we still don’t have a date for when we’ll publish another build for you all, but we are still actively working on the project every day.

Steam—Is It Happening?

We still hope so, but we don’t know for sure. We’ve now reserved a Steam AppID and even have a private store page, but we haven’t yet migrated the full codebase or pushed a build of the mod to Valve for review.
Valve is unpredictable, and they can deny approval for any or no reason. So until things are more certain, we’re continuing development and testing as a standalone Source mod.

TL;DR We don’t think it’s worth it to incite hype in our community over a public Steam page if we’re not sure the project won’t just get denied by Valve later.

What’s Going to be in the Mod?

Trying to make something that does justice to the golden age of TF2 is a complicated thing. Some believe we should be emulating a specific update or date in TF2’s history, but we feel like making a meaningful tribute is more complicated than that. It’s not that one build was great and then the next was too far–the game’s identity is complex, there are certain additions from 2011 that fit the original setting great, and certain additions from 2009 that don’t fit at all by our standards.

So we are trying to capture a spirit, essentially. It’ll require judgement calls, it can never be totally pleasing to everybody, but we are erring on the side of caution and trying our best to be fair and considerate to people’s sentimentality. And of course, there will be no original new weapons or hats–familiarity for veteran players is key.

The end goal is a complete-feeling, evolved classic TF2 experience that hits a sweet spot between the raw beauty of 2007 TF2, and the more spritely and chaotic identity it had in the early 2010s. The 2009-2010 era is our reference, but you shouldn’t expect the mod to feel 1:1 to one particular build off archive.org. We are artstyle centric, and maintaining the original setting and identity of the game is integral to our project.

Planned Weapons (not yet finalized):

The stock weapons are truly amazing, they are the highest quality weapon assets in the entire game to this day. Pretty much none that came after are quite the same in quality. That being said, a great part of what makes TF2 fun is the gameplay variety that different loadouts introduce. Here’s where things sit right now:

  • All Stock Items (obviously)
  • Scout: Force-A-Nature, BONK!, Sandman
  • Soldier: Direct Hit, Buff Banner, Gunboats, Equalizer
  • Pyro: Backburner, Flare Gun, Detonator, Axtinguisher
  • Demoman: Loch-N-Load, Scottish Resistance, Caber
  • Heavy: Natascha, Sandvich, K.G.B.
  • Engineer: Frontier Justice, Wrangler, Southern Hospitality
  • Medic: Blutsauger, Kritzkrieg, Ubersaw
  • Sniper: Huntsman, Jarate, Razorback
  • Spy: Ambassador, Y.E.R., Dead Ringer, Cloak & Dagger

This list is not finalized and we’ll only know exactly how each weapon should function with more playtesting.

Hats are more complicated—and much more tentative. We’ve kept the list small for now, focusing on cosmetics that we feel fit the launch-era aesthetic well. To us, being true to TF2’s original setting and its characters’ original identities is more important than robust player expression.

Current Supported Hats:

  • All-Class: Bill’s Hat
  • Scout: Ye Olde Baker Boy, Batter’s Helm
  • Soldier: Soldier’s Stash, Gentlemann’s Service Medal
  • Pyro: Vintage Merryweather, Brigade Helm
  • Demoman: Glengarry Bonnet, Demoman’s Fro
  • Heavy: Officer’s Ushanka, Football Helmet
  • Engineer: Texas Ten Gallon, Engineer’s Cap, Mining Light
  • Medic: Procedure Mask, Otolaryngologist’s Mirror, Vintage Tyrolean, Pickelhaube
  • Sniper: Trophy Belt, Master’s Yellow Belt, Professional’s Panama
  • Spy: Fancy Fedora, Backbiter’s Billycock

For the purists: we’ve added the cl_nohats cvar—it does exactly what it sounds like.

Visuals & Polish

TF2 has aged. Not in substance, but in fidelity. The game had to fit on the Orange Box disc and run on Xbox 360s, and parts of its visuals definitely suffered as a result of the game’s rigorous optimization. As a longer term goal, we’re aiming for beautiful visual consistency across all assets; the visual upgrade it deserves. If you’ve enjoyed elements in TF2GR like the new bucket icons, you’ll appreciate the other enhancements we’re working on. Every character model, stock weapon, unlock, and hat is being painstakingly reviewed and refined to ensure consistency in quality and style among all assets once the project is complete. This involves analyzing (and adjusting) texturing, modeling, and shaders on dozens of assets, big and small. It’s no small operation, and it will definitely take some time to complete, but it’s being handled with immense care for maintaining the complete essence of the original material. We’ll show some examples of what we mean in the future.

As always, if you have any thoughts or concerns, feel free to sound off in the #⁠feedback channel on our Discord. Thank you, sincerely, for your patience and continued interest in our project.