The long established battle between Red Vs. Blue in Team Fortress just got a little more exciting. Valve just announced on the Team Fortress blog that they have collaborated with the team from Bad Robot productions and Escalation Studios, to come up with a new game mode for TF2 called “PASS Time.” The new game mode is ready for beta testing, which was kind of the part that fascinated Bad Robot, initially.

Traditionally a film and TV studio, they [Bad Robot] typically don’t get to show their community anything until it’s already finished. So the idea of shipping a beta version of something, then working with a community of gamers to make it better over time, was a wholly new and exciting concept to them.

So what is PASS Time? Imagine playing soccer or hockey, only there are guys with guns and Claymore swords and such. In PASS Mode, teams will fight over the “Jack” which basically translates to a “ball,” and the game will consist of trying to outscore your opponent. Sounds simple. But again, the other team has rockets, rapid fire machine guns, and giant surgical knives. The announcement suggests that should the game end in a tie, that the game would go into a “Sudden Death mode,” and that you want to avoid this “true” Sudden Death at all costs. Bad Robot and Escalation are excited to work with the gamer community to improve the game, and get real time feedback, so be sure to sign up for the testing. But let’s be honest, I expect to see a TON of scouts in action with this one. We will just have to see.

Team Fortress 2 is a free-to-play game that you can get through Valve’s Steam service and it’s available on PC, Mac, and Linux.

[Source: Valve]