Team Fortress 2 now has a co-operative "horde" mode of its own, allowing five players to team up and take on waves and waves of...angry robots.

As expected, Valve's "Gray" teases have indeed led us to the dawn of the franchise's war against robotics.

The robots are modelled after each of the existing game's iconic classes. There's at least one new map built for this new game mode (pictured below), which has the robot army trying to deploy and detonate a bomb. There are also new achievements.

What's more, between waves you'll have the chance to upgrade both your character's abilities and weapons. Those making it to the end will pick up, you guessed it, loot. Which I'm guessing it hats.

Only details on the update's robots have been released today. Info on changes to the human players and just what the loot and equipment for the mode is will come later in the week.

The update is scheduled to go live on August 15.

Mann vs Machine [Team Fortress 2]

Diehard Team Fortress 2 fans have spent all weekend sleuthing out Friday's tease, in which a "Gray Mann" is revealed to be the brother of Redmond and Blutarch Mann, owners of the game's RED and BLU teams. Tons of evidence suggest this is going to mean the introduction of a robot faction, which Valve itself all but confirmed today in two more clue dumps—the will of the brothers' father and, more importantly, a new webcomic in which Gray is shown for the first time.

Read it for yourself, but it's quite apparent this guy Gray uses some heavy duty prosthetics. The will, which surfaced sometime overnight, can be found by clicking on a second bloodstain appearing on the banner of the Team Fortress 2 homepage.

A NeoGAF reader also notes that, on the front page logo, Scout, Heavy and Spy all seem to be giving Engineer dirty looks, which conforms to the thesis of that amazing video at left. It collects two years' worth of visual clues, leaks and curiosities that imply Engineer is responsible for the construction of a robot team, and that whatever this mode of play is to be, it'll be called "Man vs. Machine."

Sure, maybe we kinda know what this is all about by now, but that doesn't mean a forensic investigation of it isn't fun. Especially if it reveals some kind of a canonical structure for this feature going back two years. For more, visit the thread on NeoGAF, they seem to have uncovered some kind of encrypted file in the latest update, which upon decoding looks like the basis for another ARG.

Update: Reader iamjethro explains both the ARG and how the webcomic was discovered.

Someone found out by equipping an item that was not supposed to be equippable and high fiving someone, the person you high fived would receive a secret message in the form of a joke. The jokes turned out to be hidden hex code, which then revealed nine things. Eight of them just revealed a word, but the nineth one revealed a zip with a password lock (a Keepass thing). Using the words as a PDP code list somethignsomthingsomething(I'm not exactly sure here), people found a link inside linking to tf2.com which turned out to be a crafting recipe in game. Crafting all the items together caused a GAME wide message, linking the comic.

And that my friends, is a VALVE ARG. Special thanks given to the fine people who inhabit the valvearg.com chat for solving all this.

There's a blood-stain on the logo atop the Team Fortress 2 website. A reader at the message board NeoGAF noticed today that it links to a letter. And in that letter is a story, a story that reads like a tease, a tease that seems to be pointing to something new for Team Fortress... a third faction?

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The letter describes a heretofore unknown sibling to the owners of the game's Blu and Red teams, a person named Gray. Well, if Redmond and Blutarch are the owners of the multiplayer shooter's Red and Blu teams, could Gray have a team of his own? And what/who is the eagle?

Some of the folks on NeoGAF think a gray team could all be robots. (A Kotaku reader speculates the possibility of Red and Blu teaming up in a horde mode against Gray. Hmm.)

We know about as much as you do. Note the date of the sons' birth: September 2, 1822. September 2 of 2012 will be a Sunday, the final day of PAX, the big tradeshow that occurs in Valve's neck of the woods, Seattle Washington. On September 2, in Benaroya Hall in Seattle, Valve will host the final day of a tournament called The International. The tournament is for DOTA 2, Valve's upcoming MOBA-style game. It presumably has nothing to do with TF2, but, as with all things Valve, you get teases... you get hints... and we'll all find out soon enough.

(I've asked Valve what's up. I tend to think they won't say just yet.)

Gray couldn't have gone off and changed his name to Gordon, right? Nah...

Gray [Team Fortress 2 official site, via NeoGAF]

It's not that the current offerings have been terrible, far from it, but ever since Valve released the Source Film-maker there's been the quiet expectation that it would really start to shine once professional animators, and not just dedicated fans, got hold of it.

Well, here's what it looks like when a professional gets their hands on it.

This lengthy short, detailing the daily problems faced by an Engineer, is the work of James McVinnie, a cinematic designer at BioWare. If you think the animation looks a little better than what we're used to seeing with these clips, that's because he used two Kinects to grab motion-capture data.

Sure, it took him 130 hours, but the fact something this impressive can now come from just one man...

Oh, Source Filmmakers, is there anything can't you do?

That's a relative term, of course, as these are video game celebrities, but still. If you've ever wanted to see Minecraft creator Marcus Persson, Valve's Robin Walker and internet superstar Freddie Wong go at it over Team Fortress 2, here's your chance.

To cut out the fluff, the actual game - which also includes other devs from Valve and Bethesda - starts at 8:18 in the video above.

Watch Notch, Freddie Wong, Valve, Bethesda, and us fight for charity, honor in Team Fortress 2 [PC Gamer]

Weird question, I know, but it's one you now have an answer for regardless, as 3D artist Mariah Combs has used 3D Max to render a bunch of characters and weapons from Valve's Team Fortress 2 as though they were...exquisite pieces of glasswork.

Like I said, weird, but hey, it's late, let's just roll with it and enjoy the awesome art. Oh, and the bonus Half-Life Striders.

You can see way more examples, including sniper rifles and Portal robots, at Mariah's site.

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While we've shown the Gordon Freeman and Left 4 Dead figures before, this gallery of images from Comic-Con give us a good look at some other video game figures coming from toy company NECA, including their Borderlands 2 line and some awesome Team Fortress 2 pieces.

Also, those Portal turrets? Wonderful.

There are way more images at the link below.

NECA at the 2012 San Diego Comic Con [Cool Toy Review, via Super Punch]

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To date, most people have been using Valve's Source Filmmaker for comedic purposes, but let's remember, comedy is but one genre. So it's nice seeing this clip that's reminding us the tools can be used for more serious stuff as well.

This is amazing. The effects here rival those of all but the finest in professional pre-rendered trailers, so it's almost intimidating to think what people will be able to come up with when they really get a handle on the software.

Dammit, Steven, will you just answer the question?! Oh, and, for your reference.

Braeheavs Books [YouTube via Reddit]