In the next week or so Valve will be releasing the third annual Scream Fortress update. Based on the previous two Halloween updates this will include at least one scary themed map, achievements and Halloween-restricted hats. If you have joined TF2 within the last year—possibly because it recently became Free To Play—do not worry, you can still pick up the previous Halloween swag. Follow these few tips to catch up on Scream Fortress’s past.

In 2009 Valve released the first Halloween themed TF2 update: The Terrifying Team Fortress Haunted Hallowe’en Special. This included a haunted version of the King Of The Hill map Harvest and a group of Scarechievements. At the start of the update Valve put up a secret web page and the first 10,319 players to find said page received the Ghastly Gibus. Fear not though eager hat collector, the Ghastly Gibus can still be yours by way of the first scarechievement. If you dominate (kill 3 times without being killed by) a player wearing a Ghastly Gibus you will unlock the Ghastly Gibus Grab Scarechievement and the Ghastly Gibus is yours! This is the only scarechievement that you can achieve outside of the Halloween events and the Gibus can be worn throughout the year.

Next up is the Mildly Disturbing Halloween Mask. This is basically a paper sack that can be worn by any class. The image that displays on the mask in game depends on the class that is wearing it. During the Halloween events when a player is killed, there is a chance that they will drop a Halloween Pumpkin. Halloween Pumpkins look like hollowed out pumpkins full of candy and give you a crit boost for a short time after picking them up. Collect 20 of them to earn Candy Corner and unlock the Mildly Disturbing Halloween Mask. This mask can be equipped at any time but will only show up in game during Halloween events.

The next two scarechievements are based in the Halloween maps. Originally only in Harvest, these also carried over to work in Mann Manor in 2010. There are bomb laden pumpkins placed throughout the maps that explode when you shoot them. Use these pumpkins to kill 5 opponents to earn Attck o’ Lantern. Each of the two Halloween maps have been haunted by an NPC. When players are scared by these characters, they put their hands up, lose the ability to jump, gain shivering slowness, and scream like babies. Kill an opponent who is scared to earn Scared Stiff . Lastly there is Costume Contest, simply earned by killing a spy disguised as your current class.

In 2010 we were surprised with a followup update: The Second Annu-Hell Scream Fortress Haunted Halloween Special. Similar to the previous year, we were treated to a haunted map, Mann Manor and four new Ghostchievements. Within this update included a total of 11 new any-class hats and one wicked weapon.

During the Halloween events Mann Manor has two special quirks that make it like no other TF2 experience before or since. Firstly when there are ten or more people on a server playing Mann Manor, Haunted Halloween Gifts randomly appear throughout the map. The gifts are big bright green packages that show up in one of a number of predetermined places on the map every five minutes or so. The first player to find the gift and run through it gets an in-game gift. The gift is always one of nine Halloween Masks. Similar to the Mildly Disturbing Halloween Mask, the Halloween Masks are paper sacks with each class depicted in a crayon style drawing and will only show up during Halloween events. Collecting all nine of these is not an easy task, but because so many of them are given out each year they are easily traded for. Collecting your first Haunted Halloween Gift will earn you the Masked Mann Ghostchievement. Then earn Sackston Hale by collecting a set of all nine Halloween Masks and crafting them together to make the Saxton Hale Mask. The Saxton Hale Mask is a paper sack with a crayon drawing of the great Saxton Hale and is wearable year round.

Next on Mann Manor is The Horseless Headless Horsemann commonly refereed to as HHH. HHH is an NPC who rises from control points to slay whoever dares set foot on Mann Manor. As long as there are ten players on a server, HHH will rise from the current control point (every ten minutes or so) and start a ‘Halloween tag mini-game’ if you will. The game is HHH vs. everyone. The nearest player to HHH when he rises becomes ‘It’ and they are marked for death. HHH will hunt you with the speed of The Scout—and with a wide swing of his Headtaker, he will take your head. The only manly way to get HHH off your heels is to tag an opponent with a melee hit to pass on the title of ‘It’ (running into a spawn room or getting far away from HHH will drop your ‘It’ness but it will also make you a wussy).

Killing HHH is especially hard due to his Boo taunt. He will stop, wave his skeletal hands and yell “BOO!” Anyone in range will become ‘scared’ and can expect impending decapitation. Landing a killing blow on HHH will earn you Sleepy Holl0WNED which unlocks the Horseless Headless Horsemann’s Head. While wearing the Horsemann’s Head you are immune to his Boo! Taunt. This makes the next part easier, but really only slightly. If you can successfully land a melee shot on HHH and outlive him you will earn Gored! and unlock Horseless Headless Horsemann’s Haunted Metal Scrap. This special scrap metal can then be used to craft either a Halloween themed hat or The Horseless Headless Horsemann Headtaker, the hilariously large single bladed axe that HHH uses. The HHHH is a reskin of the Eyelander for the Demoman.

Scare you have it—a brief history of TF2 on Halloween. While I covered how to get all the Halloween achievements and swag, there are a lot of little tweaks and changes during the TF2 Halloween events that are worth a gaze. Valve has already made the Halloween versions of Harvest and Mann Manor available as of last Friday to build anticipation for the upcoming Halloween 2011 event. Look for koth_Harvest_event and cp_Manor_event for the Halloween versions. Keep the ghosts off your back and your eye on the official TF2 Blog for all of this year’s gory details.

If you want to play with Icrontic, come say “Hi” in our forums, and join us for friendly and hilarious TF2 Halloween fun!