From Team Fortress Wiki

This article is about the cosmetic item. For the mercenary characters in Team Fortress 2, see Classes

“

— The Scout I'll put it in my trophy room, with the othas. ”

The Mercenary is a cosmetic item for all classes. It is a rectangular bronze medal with the character's class emblem in the center worn on the character's chest.

As part of Valve's 119th Update celebration, the Mercenary was awarded to players who tried out Team Fortress 2 for the first time – a year after its initial release until the week before the 119th Update – between October 10, 2008 and April 22, 2010. New players who installed the game after the initial release of the medals were still given the Mercenary badge. Other related badges include the Grizzled Veteran, Soldier of Fortune, and Primeval Warrior medals.

April 29, 2010 Patch (119th Update)

The Mercenary was added to the game.

May 7, 2010 Patch

Badge hire dates now display the time in GMT.

September 30, 2010 Patch (Mann-Conomy Update)

[Undocumented] Added a community-contributed description for this item.

November 19, 2010 Patch

Name Tags may now be used on this medal.

Bugs

In the class loadout screen, the Mercenary badge will sometimes appear as the Grizzled Veteran Badge with a Scout emblem.

When a Spy is disguised as a player with the Mercenary badge equipped, it will show the Spy class emblem regardless of the player's class.

Notes

The item description was written by crushilista for the Hat Describing Contest.

When the Mercenary was first released in-game, it was named the "Weekend Warrior". Because some players considered the implication that they only played on weekends or had a low play time as derogatory, the name was changed. The 119th Update celebration page changed along with the name to reflect this, as it was with the addition of the Primeval Warrior.

Gallery

The Scout's Mercenary medal.

The Soldier's Mercenary medal.

The Pyro's Mercenary medal.

The Demoman's Mercenary medal.

The Heavy's Mercenary medal.

The Engineer's Mercenary medal.

The Medic's Mercenary medal.

The Sniper's Mercenary medal.

The Spy's Mercenary medal.

The back of the Mercenary medal.

The Mercenary medal when it was known as the Weekend Warrior.