Team Fortress 2 "Expiration Date" (partially found screenplay and extended cut of animated short; 2012-2014)
The title card for the short.
Status: Partially Found
Expiration Date is a short created by Valve for the Team Fortress 2 game franchise. It was released on June 17th, 2014 to coincide with the game's Love and War update.
Production
Sometime in the early 2010s, a Valve employee started work on a screenplay for the game. More employees such as artists took interest in the screenplay and also started work.[1]
Later in 2012, Adult Swim pitched to Valve an animated series surrounding the mercenaries that would last 15 minutes each episode, taking on the style of the earlier Meet the Team shorts. This would also start their partnership.[2][3]
Although Adult Swim was very vague about the partnership and details about the pitch, it was still speculated it would happen.[4]
Valve decided to use a cut-down version of the unfinished screenplay, which had a deadline of mid-2013. However, due to the commonly known Valve time (a joke associated with time constraints during development), Valve failed to meet the deadlines of Adult Swim.
Initially, Valve submitted a 20 minute cut of the pilot in 2013, which although was pitched, was rejected and later shortened.
Between late 2013 and early 2014, a 15 minute rough cut of the pilot was finished and pitched to Adult Swim, but it did not meet the expectations and guidelines Adult Swim wanted.
Some examples of expectations not met include the run-time being 15 minutes rather than 11 minutes (meaning there was no room for an ad break), which was not affordable for Adult Swim to air.
Reportedly, Valve did not follow Adult Swim's time guidelines despite reminders, and the pilot was not entirely completed, having some placeholder voices (such as Nolan North taking on the roles of Soldier and Engineer), and some animation not having been finalized.
By early to mid-2014, Adult Swim wanted 12 episodes, however, Valve was still busy working on the pilot. Sometime after the interactions between Valve and Adult Swim, Adult Swim cancelled production and pulled the plug for the pitch.[5]
Valve still had plans despite the cancellation of the series, and the pilot was later finished, and was released on the Team Fortress channel as Expiration Date. The fate of the unfinished episodes and original screenplay (which have been known to been written or worked on) is unknown.
In 2020, Tyler McVicker of VNN who had previously made a video about the cancelled series had an interview with Jerma985 regarding him being named after the Scout. It was revealed Nathan Vetterlein, who voices the Scout, helped write for the series with Ashly Burch during its production.[6]
Availability
While the final short is readily available on YouTube, the extended cut, unfinished scripts, and original screenplay for the short have yet to be released.
It is known that several deleted scenes existed in the extended cut of the short, including a scene featuring the Scout, Heavy, and strawberries used during the date part of the short.[7]
Earlier in 2013, several VTF files of used and unused assets from the short leaked onto Reddit, which included the texture for the strawberries from the deleted scene. A Google Doc was also shared, containing a list of potentially unused scenes and places from the short.[8]
Later, a reel was discovered on Vimeo, containing early versions of scenes from the short, and a deleted scene.[9]
As of 2023, no new content from the earlier cuts has resurfaced.
Gallery
Videos
Images
A still of one of the deleted scenes, taken from a quest image for VRHome.
A possible still of a deleted scene, featuring Scout eating Heavy's sandwich.
A still of the one of the deleted scenes with an earlier model of Miss Pauling.
References
- ↑ A resume for Ashly Burch, which writing for the series can be seen.
- ↑ Polygon's article on the project.
- ↑ Eurogamer's article on the project.
- ↑ Engadget's article on the partnership between Valve and Adult Swim.
- ↑ SVG article on the subject.
- ↑ A clip of the interview with Jerma985, where the series is mentioned.
- ↑ A Tumblr page discussing the deleted scenes and some short interviews with some of the production crew.
- ↑ The Reddit thread surrounding the leak.
- ↑ The reel containing the footage, which cannot be embedded.
