Team Fortress 2's annual Halloween event kicks off with curses, spells, bumper cars

Scream Fortress, Team Fortress 2's annual Halloween-themed event, kicks off today in the free-to-play shooter. The limited-time event sees the return of Scottish wizard Merasmus, which means the addition of funky curses and magic spells, and the introduction of ... bumper cars.

In addition to infusing the combat of Team Fortress 2 with the arcane, Valve is tossing in some carnival ride-style fun in the form of playable bumper cars. That new mode ties into some of this year's Scream Fortress achievements.

Of course, the requisite handing out of gifts will be a part of Scream Fortress once again, though Valve says it's taking a somewhat different approach to distributing treats. In an attempt to combat the farming of Scream Fortress gifts, Valve says it's giving away one guaranteed gift bundle just for logging in during the TF2 event.

"This bundle will contain a random sample of some of this year's content, including some that would otherwise only have come from crates," Valve says in an update. "To keep some of the fun of getting multiple gifts through the event, all players can earn a secondary bundle by completing some of the event achievements. Put together, these two bundles will grant more items per player than the median five gifts from last year."

More information about gift distribution in Team Fortress 2's Halloween event is available at the game's official blog.

This year's Scream Fortress event will run from Oct. 29 to Nov. 12. Scream Fortress gameplay modes and maps from previous years were enabled last week. Team Fortress 2 is available on Steam for Linux, Mac and Windows PC.