17 years later, Valve fixes Team Fortress 2 bug that made Scout's pants the wrong color: 'Bug so old it could have enlisted with parental consent' | PC Gamer

"This game still fixes things that I never thought were broken in the first place."

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The dream team at Valve Software has done it again, adding another footnote to the definition of Valve Time by releasing a new update for Team Fortress 2 that corrects a 17-year old bug.

The update's notes contain the innocuous line "Fixed BLU Scout using the incorrect team color pants." The news that one of Team Fortress 2's characters has apparently been running around in the wrong trousers for such a long time has, needless to say, caused consternation, shock and awe around one of the most excitable-slash-resigned fanbases out there. It also has amusing implications about Scout's ability to get himself dressed.

The change can be seen in the below comparison image:

THEY MADE BLU SCOUT’S PANTS BLUETHEY CHANGED A CHARACTER DESIGN 17 YEARS LATER WHAT pic.twitter.com/WFPdYvwYzxOctober 24, 2024

"Honestly the fact that most pants cosmetics are now gonna be mismatched forever is hilarious," says Patrick Bateman, though I'm pretty sure it's not him.

Much other reaction runs along the memey lines of "TF2 is finally playable!" and "game is saved!" alongside expressions of the opposite, and a general underlying disquiet that everyone's been playing with the wrong color pants for this long without noticing. Except one: YouTuber Shounic posted a video last year titled "Scout's pants is the wrong color" in which he shows that the Photoshop file for the Scout's textures has the BLU team pants layer disabled.

So credit where it's due: Scout's pants was the wrong color. Shounic uploaded another short video in response to the change showing a few of the cosmetic issues changing this texture has caused, though amusingly enough he also notes that the zombie Scout model was accurately updated.

Needless to say it's the subject of all the top posts on the TF2 subreddit, with MrCheggersPartyQuiz wistfully remarking that "almost 20 years later, this game still fixes things that I never thought were broken in the first place."

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The line of the day though goes to Mx. Bean: "Bug so old it could have enlisted with parental consent."

Finally, the TF2 community has further outdone itself: The Scout having the wrong trousers for 17 years is now the subject of a new TF2 fanfiction from WelfareGorilla. Excerpt: "Them pants is meant for Red team scouts, you're supposed to be wearin' a pair of dandy blue ones!"

Rich is a games journalist with 15 years' experience, beginning his career on Edge magazine before working for a wide range of outlets, including Ars Technica, Eurogamer, GamesRadar+, Gamespot, the Guardian, IGN, the New Statesman, Polygon, and Vice. He was the editor of Kotaku UK, the UK arm of Kotaku, for three years before joining PC Gamer. He is the author of a Brief History of Video Games, a full history of the medium, which the Midwest Book Review described as "[a] must-read for serious minded game historians and curious video game connoisseurs alike."

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