The Spy from Team Fortress 2 has one of the most unique playstyles I’ve seen in a multiplayer shooter. But he’s also kinda… bad? Watch my video.

Transcript:

The Spy in Team Fortress 2 is an extremely complicated class. In this video, I’ll break down how all of his mechanics come together to form one of the most interesting classes in a multiplayer shooter. And also talk about why he’s so bad.

Welcome to System Review.

Today’s focus, is the Spy from Team Fortress 2.

The Spy is the great equalizer. He can take out any class in an instant, regardless of their health. Of course, such a great power comes at a cost. He can only instantly kill someone if he’s in melee range and pokes them in the back.

The backstab is powerful. Not just through it’s damage output, but because of its sheer existence. Knowing that a Spy could be behind you at this particular moment is enough to put anyone on edge.

As an Engineer main, I always feel particularly targeted. The Spy has a weapon slot dedicated to destroying Engineer buildings. They’re drawn to Sentry nests like flies to an Unusual Engineer’s Cap. That’s part of their role as the Spy. Disrupt the Engineer.

The Invisibility Watch, another tool from his kit, is equally as important. It allows him to go completely invisible for 10 seconds. When invisible, you can cross certain sightlines or get behind the enemy without being spotted. If you’re trying to stab someone in the back, you want to come from an area they aren’t expecting. Going invisible at just the right time can allow you to get in the perfect position to pounce upon your prey.

The last, and most intriguing, part of his arsenal is the Disguise Kit. With this, the Spy can transform his outward appearance into that of any other class. From both teams. So you could disguise as a Scout from your team or a Medic from the enemy team.

Any person you look at on your team could be a Spy. Now there are some limitations to what a Spy can do while disguised. They can’t shoot, they can’t pass through enemies, and they can’t taunt. But someone not doing one of those things isn’t inherently suspicious. It’s only when they don’t do all of those things for a prolonged period of time.

I’ll talk more about that stuff later.

I wanna focus on what the Spy was designed for.

The Spy is a class dedicated to killing off his enemies one by one. His main way of doing that is through backstabs. To achieve a backstab, he’s given tools like the invisibility watch and the disguise kit to get behind enemy lines and into advantageous positions.

He’s able to sneak behind the front line of the battle and kill the powerful sniper. The sniper has a one-hit kill ability much like the Spy, but he’s able to do it at range. He stands still for long periods of time waiting for a headshot opportunity. That’s the perfect target for a Spy.

He’s able to kill an overhealed Heavy in one hit. Those guys have 450 HP and that’s difficult to bring down with most loadouts.

He’s the ultimate counter to the powerful classes of the game.

He doesn’t even have to backstab to succeed though.

He can sow doubt.

You look around, and you see teammates. But for all you know, there could be a Spy amongst them. You don’t know which, but you get the feeling that someone here is on the enemy team. So you look for tells.

You think… like a spy.

You look for teammates in odd places. You look for people that are staring at the backside of your teammates. You look for someone that turns around as soon as you turn around.

I’ve become hardened over the years. I’m constantly turning around and making sure I’m not about to get stabbed. I don’t even think about it, it’s reflexive at this point. I’ll shoot random teammates just to double check and make sure they aren’t trying to kill me.

It’s something that’s burned into every TF2 veteran’s brain.

Think about that for a second.

If the Spy’s job is to get backstabs, and everyone is paranoid about getting backstabbed… how can the Spy exist?

If the Spy can’t backstab, his class is useless. His only other useful tool is the Sapper, but a Demoman could just as easily take down a sentry nest.

How does a Spy fit into that version of TF2?

Simply put… he doesn’t.

Sure, if you throw a somewhat competent Spy against a bunch of new players, he’s gonna wreck house. But what if they wise up to his tricks? What if a couple of them go Pyro and constantly spycheck everywhere? Just holding M1 and flaming all your teammates is easy.

More skilled players don’t even need that. They’ve accumulated hundreds of hours of playtime and have this sixth sense for spy detecting. You see some Scout walking towards the frontline and you instantly know its an enemy Spy. And even if you don’t know it’s one, you can just shoot him anyway. There’s no friendly fire, if he truly is your teammate, he won’t take damage. There’s literally nothing to lose from shooting random teammates.

That’s a huge roadblock for the Spy. It’s way too easy to spy check. Ammo boxes and dispensers are all over the place, so the cost of wasting a couple shots on a teammate is negligible weighed against the potential backstabbing you might receive.

I think that’s a fundamental problem with the class as a whole. And what’s worse, I don’t think that’s something that can be balanced around.

Well, if I’m being fair, I think Spies would flourish a lot more if friendly fire was enabled. There’d be no point in shooting teammates to check if they’re a spy, because they would take just as much damage as a disguised enemy Spy. You wouldn’t gain any valuable information from doing that.

But that would introduce far too many different changes to the game as a whole, they wouldn’t add friendly fire just to make the Spy’s life a little bit easier.

Outside of that, I can’t think of anything Valve could do to ease the Spy’s burden. The problem is psychological, not mechanical. People know when a teammate is acting suspicious. No amount of value tweaking could fix that.

It’s almost like he doesn’t even fit into the modern version of TF2. The players and the meta have evolved to a point where the Spy is much less effective than when the game first came out.

Don’t get me wrong, he can still do pretty well in big casual servers. That’s where he thrives. Nobody notices one too many Pyros walking around staring at people’s backs. He lives for the chaos of a 24 player server where nobody communicates.

Where things get problematic, though, is in smaller servers.

I haven’t played competitive 6v6 or 9v9, so I might be wrong here, but I feel like Spies would have a really hard time in that environment. On top of playing against highly-skilled players, there are just less people in the game. There’s less visual noise for a Spy to hide in.

Number 1, if you see a fellow Pyro, but you know none of your teammates are even playing Pyro, you know there’s an imposter among you.

Number 2, if you see a fellow Scout, but you know your ONLY Scout is on the other side of the map making callouts, you see through his facade.

Number 3, actions from an enemy Spy that might get drowned out in a 12 vs 12 server will be much more noticeable when there’s only 6 people on each team.

You get the picture.

Bottom line, the Spy only works in specific circumstances.

But oh boy, when he works? He works.

It’s so satisfying tricking someone.

He has all these tools that lets you inside people’s minds. So many stealth games are built around you sneaking by a bunch of enemies, taking them down one bad AI at a time. Being stealthy in Skyrim almost feels like a comedy. You’ll kill some dude and his friend will be like, “Must have been the wind.”

This is the real deal. You are engaging in deceit against real life human people with presumably functioning brains. It’s so satisfying walking up to a target they’ll shoot you for a second, then assume you’re a normal teammate and go about their business. And if you’re a good player, you’ll turn that into a few good kills. If you’re me, you’ll be filled with adrenaline by that point and just bee-line for the closest player’s back, only to get gunned down because you were too obvious.

But even the smallest victories as Spy feel great. Getting healed from enemy Medics. An Engineer letting you near his Sentry nest. A Pyro not lighting you up the second he sees you.

It’s in those moments where a Spy feels truly special.

Those moments are special to me because of how oppressive it feels to play Spy.

Now maybe I’m just a moron, maybe my experience as a Spy is not the norm. Maybe most people can walk around the map just fine without bumping into enemies or running out of cloak.

But Spy always felt stressful to me. I mentioned earlier that I’m an Engineer main, so there’s definitely a contrast in energies there. When I’m Engineer, I’m just chilling. Setting up my sentry nest, building teleporters, killing the occasional Spy. I build support systems so everyone else on my team can succeed.

As Spy, I’m the one expected to succeed. People expect me to get a handful of backstabs in a single life, when most of the time, I struggle to get just one and retreat with my life intact. I feel like there’s never enough space for me to walk around enemies. Like everyone has super-human hearing and can hear me decloak a mile away.

When I play Spy, I feel like I’m on a constant uphill battle.

As Soldier or Demoman, I’ll have streaks where I feel like a god amongst babies, just dumpstering on everyone I can. I rarely have those as Spy.

I don’t know if that speaks to how I play Spy or his place in the game as a whole. Now that I think about it, I think they both play a part. I’m not really convincing as a Spy AND people are a lot more suspicious these days.

I’m stuck in this weird place, where I’m really bad at Spy and also kinda think he IS bad, but I really like what he adds to the game.

He’s a little wrinkle in a game that already has a lot of depth. The idea of “the spy” is something that can’t leave your mind for a second, because once it does, you get backstabbed. You have to constantly be on the lookout for one to save yourself or other teammates.

It’s that same thought process that makes him so difficult to play. The more alert people are, the harder time he has. The more kills you get, the more attention you draw to yourself.

And I really envy those people that can ride the line. It takes a really skilled player to find a balance.

You have to be quick-thinking and decisive. You can’t second guess yourself or let stress get to you. But you can’t be too assertive or enemies will sniff you out quicker than a Sniper bot.

It’s a stressful role.

If you’re looking to de-stress, check out this video where I tour the worlds of Minecraft. Its atmosphere is very calming and only a little bit scary. Just keep an eye out for any mysterious figures.

Thanks for watching, see ya next time.