If you watched last night’s GT.TV special about Valve, you already know that we’re holding the second annual Saxxy Awards this fall. What you don’t know is that we’ve decided to make the Saxxy’s a lot more like an illegal underground martial-arts bloodsport. That’s right: This year there are no rules. There are, however, a whole bunch of brutal laws, traditions, commandments and decrees, plus some rules, which we’ve assembled in a handy bullet-pointed list on the official Saxxy website. Kumite!

Interesting math fact: If you added up every Steam Screenshot, every YouTube clip linked from a Steam account, and every Workshop item you guys have created together, you'd have over 89,000,000 pieces of community-generated content. Wow, is that a big number. And since we take the time to print out every TF2 screenshot, transfer every TF2 video to DVD, and lovingly whittle every TF2 item you design out of soap, the TF2 offices are getting a little cluttered. A load-bearing picture stack in the screenshot district toppled over last week, and the fire department suggested we create some sort of central online hub for this stuff before somebody died.

Introducing the TF2 Game Hub, a central repository of community-created and official content, as rated by you, the Steam users—game-centric discussions, workshop items, screenshots, videos, news. It's all here, under a single virtual roof.

And this is just the first step. We plan to have a hub for every game on Steam—click here to find out more about the new Steam Community. We're sending out an invite-only beta for the Community today, but the TF2 hub's outside the beta and visible to everyone, so feel welcome to drop by and check out some of the new features.

Updates to Team Fortress 2, Day of Defeat: Source and Half-Life 2: Deathmatch have been released. The updates will be applied automatically when your Steam client is restarted. The major changes include:
Day of Defeat: Source and Half-Life 2: Deathmatch

• Brought in line with shared engine changes

Team Fortress 2

• Added Mann vs. Machine
• Added Archimedes
• Added The Soldier's Stogie
• Added The Robro 3000
• Updated The Helmet Without a Home to be paintable
• Fixed some clipping issues with The Salty Dog
• Removed player penetration from The Pomson 6000 and boosted the damage to compensate

All right, men! This is it! Gray Mann's robot army is HERE! The Mann vs. Machine war has begun!

The robots are at our doorstep, men, and trust me – they are not going to be asking for a cup of sugar. No! These monsters are going to break down our doors, take our sugar, and sprinkle it on our graves!

While you sassy little sweet peas are chewing on that, strap on your book-goggles and prepare to learn about Mann Up Mode! And loot and achievements! And a new map designed by ME! Hup hup hup! Eyes left! Eyes right! Eyes left! Eyes right! Now you are READING, puddin' cups!

Have you seen the movie Alien? Remember how tough that alien was? Well, imagine if there was a version of Alien but with like hundreds of aliens. One: That would be a great movie that we now own the idea for. Two: The impossible odds of that situation pretty accurately describe the trouble you’re in for when that carrier opens on Wednesday and Gray Mann’s robot army pours out. Luckily, we solved the enormous plot hole that would have plagued our currently-in-production Alien sequel by offering MvM’s plucky heroes a whole mess of deadly upgrades for their weapons, items and abilities, which you can read about here.

We’re also unveiling a new museum-themed map called Coal Town. It features many informative placards about the fascinating details of life in a turn-of-the-century mining community, which you can read when you’re lying on the ground holding your own guts in while a robot stomps on your neck.

This is Saxton. Hale! And that legion business in the title was a Bible quote to let you know how serious this all is: Bible serious. So listen up, mercs. Some puny cowards built an army of robots to fight his fights for him. I don't know if robots have human emotions, but if not, they’re doing a Saxxy-worthy impression of them, because they look mad. Also, Reddy tells me they’re heading straight at Mann Co.

Last night we launched our most fiendishly difficult ARG yet, involving roughly 5000 individual pieces of data that had to be painstakingly collected and decoded by equipping specific items and then performing even more specific actions in-game.

An update to Team Fortress 2 has been released. The update will be applied automatically when you restart Team Fortress 2. The major changes include:

• Added the .nav file for Kong King
• Fixed the missing Kong King map stamp image in the Mann Co. Store

An update to Team Fortress 2 has been released. The update will be applied automatically when you restart Team Fortress 2. The major changes include:

• Added new map Koth_King
• Added the Ready Steady Pan tournament medals
• Added new promo items
• Fixed a Medigun exploit that could leave players indefinitely invulnerable
• Fixed sentry gun sometimes placing wrong, being rotated into the ground and pointing upward
• Renamed "The Huo Long Heatmaker" to "The Huo-Long Heater"
• Updated the localization files
• Updated the Neon Annihilator
  • Materials now animate
  • Damage penalty only applies to players (not buildings)
  • Can damage sappers

Were you thinking, "I really like playing TF2, but I wish there was a King of the Hill map set in a Chinese cityscape"? Well, your oddly specific and scarily prescient dreams have come true! Introducing Kong King - TF2’s first city-themed map! - created in collaboration with Sleeping Dogs and community member Valentin Levillain, aka 3Dnj.

We’re a little disappointed that Valentin is spending all of his time making TF2 maps and not fulfilling his true destiny as a roguishly handsome super-villain, but it gives us a chance to finish our costumes for our inevitable battle atop a snowy mountain where we will fight for the love of Cassandra Prosciutto.

You may be able to capture her physical form with your hyper-advanced laser-traps, Levillain, but you will never capture…her heart!