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Making an Arena Map

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January 2024
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This gametype is included in A Boojum Snark's Team Fortress 2 Gametype Library

The complete entity setup for this gametype is included in "A Boojum Snark's Team Fortress 2 Gametype Library," a downloadable VMF that includes all official Team Fortress 2 gametypes. The entities can easily be transferred from the VMF to your own custom map without the hassle of having to build it yourself or debugging it.

"A Boojum Snark's Team Fortress 2 Gametype Library" can be downloaded here: TF2Maps.net

Tfwiki favicon.png Arena is a gamemode for Team Fortress 2 Team Fortress 2 that came along with the Tfwiki favicon.png Heavy Update. In this gamemode, you don't respawn until your team wins or loses. The goal is to kill everyone on the enemy team or capture the center control point of the map. The control point is locked for 60 seconds in Valve's Arena maps, and cannot be captured until it's unlocked.

This article will tell you how to set up the Arena gamemode for your map.

Arena Gamemode Entities

First, we'll need an entity to check when a team captures the center control point.

Property Name Value
Name master_control_point

This entity will be used to send an output when a round starts and when the control point is enabled. Specify the amount of seconds you want before it's activated here. 60 is the default setting.

Property Name Value
CapEnableDelay 60


Now add the following outputs to it:

My Output Target Entity Target Input Parameter Delay Only Once
Io11.png OnCapEnabled cap_flag ShowModel <none> 0.00 No
Io11.png OnArenaRoundStart relay_round_start Trigger <none> 0.00 No
Io11.png OnCapEnabled relay_cap_enable Trigger <none> 0.00 No

The first output displays the model for the control point when it has been enabled. The other two triggers the relays for the round start and control point activation.

This will be used for outputs when the round starts.

Property Name Value
Name relay_round_start


This will be used for outputs when the control point is enabled.

Property Name Value
Name relay_cap_enable

That's about it for the basic gamemode.

Control point setup

Now we'll set up the center control point entities.

This is the base model for the control point. It will be configured to change skin when a team captures it.

Property Name Value
World Model models/props_gameplay/cap_point_base.mdl
Name prop_cap_1

This is the control point.

Property Name Value
Name cap_flag
Print Name #Arena_cap
Index 3
BLUE model bodygroup 0
  • Check the "Start with model hidden" flag. This is because it will be displayed when the control point is enabled


This is the trigger area, that will let the teams capture it after it's enabled. You can modify these values to suit your map.

Property Name Value
Name cap_trigger
Control point cap_flag
Number of RED players to cap 3
Number of BLUE players to cap 3
Time to cap (sec) 4
My Output Target Entity Target Input Parameter Delay Only Once
Io11.png OnCapTeam1 prop_cap_1 Skin 1 0.00 No
Io11.png OnCapTeam2 prop_cap_1 Skin 2 0.00 No


That's it! It should be working now. Don't forget to add a spawnroom if you want to try it out. You might want to add a relay_round_start to trigger the spawndoors to open.


Now, if you load your map, you will notice the server will keep you in the spawn area as it waits for more players to join. To fix this, open up the console and type sv_cheats 1;bot. This will add a bot to the server and let you playtest the map. You haven't made the bot do anything though. They will just stand in spawn and do nothing

See also