It took 17 years, but Valve finally fixed Scout’s pants in an update Fortress 2 Complex which appeared on Thursday. The amendment was widely appreciated by TF2 a community that has silently suffered for years due to incorrectly colored pants while playing as a BLU Scout.
Fortress 2 ComplexThe cast of characters has a RED or BLU color scheme. On the RED side, the character’s pants are red, brown, or somewhere in between. On the BLU side, with the exception of Scout for the last 17 years, the characters’ pants are shades of blue or gray. As of Thursday’s update, the BLU website now has a consistent and signature blue shade from the waist down.
“They finally turned on that Photoshop layer,” another player explained.
Movie from Shounic YouTuber from Team Fortress published in 2023 explained how Scout’s worn-out pants could have come about. This appears to have been an oversight with the PhotoShop layer (hence the Reddit comment) that gave the BLU Scout the same pants as the RED Scout.
As shounic noted, BLU Scout was shown wearing blue pants in many official screenshots, promotional materials, comics, and even in-game, but only in the PlayStation 3 version of the game. Fortress 2 Complexincluded in Orange Box collection. The Steam version had the wrong pants all along. Hell, even Valve Meet the Spy video from 2009 I was wrong.
However, the saga of the BLU Scout pants is not over yet. So much Fortress 2 Complex players have noticed that other BLU Scout cosmetics are still the wrong color. The Blizzard Britches and Mann vs. Machine robot skins for the BLU Scout have not been fixed yet. We may have another 17 years ahead of us TF2 it’s fully, truly playable.
It’s unclear why Valve finally decided to update Scout’s pants and how much development effort it took to do so. However, Polygon has reached out to Valve for comment and will update when the developer responds.