New Team Fortress 2 update may transform the game, but Valve is being mysterious

In the new Team Fortress 2 update, Valve says that it has “relaxed in-game chat restrictions for certain accounts.” On the surface, that would seem to suggest that anybody playing TF2 for free will now be able to use the in-game text and chat functions again - since 2020, those features have been unavailable to anybody without a premium account. However, while some free players report that the chat systems are, indeed, usable now, others say that they are not. Half-Life 3 may be Valve’s biggest mystery, but something strange is happening in TF2.