TF2’s voice cast is terrorising America’s small towns on a hunt for sandwiches

Remember when the world was young, Team Fortress 2 was new(ish), and Valve was putting out those Meet The Team (opens in new tab) character spotlight videos to promote the game? Well, they’re back, except instead of in-engine trailers, the game’s voice cast seems to have taken it upon itself to engage in a sort of real-life guerilla marketing campaign, baffling onlookers but greatly entertaining me personally.

The ‘Search for Sandvich’ series sees the voice actors of characters like TF2’s Sniper, Heavy, Medic, Announcer and so on roam America’s unsuspecting small towns in a hunt for, well, sandwiches. It began back at the beginning of September, when the game’s voice cast was united in Seattle for PAX West 2022, and only seems to have snowballed from there.

So far, the cast has mystified deli workers, confused convenience store staff, and sent at least one bystander into a laughing fit in a Twin Peaks-themed cafe in North Bend, Washington State. You’ve got to respect how ready every random passerby seems to be to humour a band of roving strangers shouting at one another about sandwiches in accents no real human being has ever had. Maybe that just happens all the time in Washington. I’ve never been.

The latest video came out last Saturday, and sees the introduction of Dennis Bateman—the voice of TF2’s Spy and Pyro—and Liz McCarthy from Twin Peaks: Fire Walk With Me. I have no idea if the Twin Peaks tie-ins are actually building to anything or if it’s just a brilliant, incomprehensible coincidence, but David Lynch suddenly making an appearance in one of these vids—perhaps to announce the weather (opens in new tab)—would hardly be out-of-character.

There’s a whole load of these videos by now, but I’ve included a few that cracked me up below.

If you’re desperate for more, you can find them by searching the #TF2WTSFTS hashtag (opens in new tab) on Twitter. I’m hoping it just becomes an ongoing series that continues every time two or more cast members are in the same place. Everyone seems to be having too much fun for it to end.