Free Hats and Items you can earn for TF2!

If you have no hats or cosmetics, or would like to aquire some more, you have come to the right place! This guide will detail some easy-to-earn hats, cosmetics, and a weapon or two, all of which can be earned free (usually through achievements).

Introduction

Are you in desperate need of hats? Do others laugh at you for you hatless-ness, and call you "poor and Irish"?

Look no further ladies and gentlemen! For you shall become knowledgeable of all teh the free cosmetic items you can earn for Team Fortress 2.

After all, who needs a $50 hat with pixels?
NOTE: If any items are class-specific (meaning they can't be worn by all classes), I will mention that. If the item has no class limitation description in this guide, than it can be worn by all classes.

General Achievement Items

These are going to be the most basic of hats, which you can aquire by doing stuff within Team Fortress 2 itself.

The Ghostly Gibus

A very basic hat which many people easily aquire just by playing the game.

How to earn: Simply get the Ghastly Gibus Grab achievement, which is to Dominate a person wearing any "Gibus" series hat. This is basically earned by playing any normal TF2 match and targeting a person wearing this hat, or one that is a Gibus at all.

Pyrovision Goggles

Another basic item, but this is a cosmetic, rather than a hat. In case you didn't know, it also enables Pyroland.

How to earn: Like the Gibus, you must domainate a person wearing this item to earn the Goggles yourself. The achievement you unlock that gives you this is A Fresh Pair of Eyes.

The Full Head of Steam

How to earn: This hat is aquired by getting the Foundry Milestone achievement, which is to get 7 out of the 11 Foundry-exclusive achievements (see the link for how to get the individual achievements). Just play on Foundry a while, see if anyone is willing to help you earn them, and that's it.

Gentle Munitionne of Leisure

This top hat has a cool smoke effect that portrudes from the rocket.

How to earn: Get 7 of the 11 achievements in the
Doomsday exclusive achievement pack (see the link for how to complete the achievements).

Frontline Field Recorder

This hat will require that you upload a video to YouTube.

How to earn: You will need to earn the Local Cinema Star achievement, which requires that you make a replay of some gameplay, and upload it to YouTube. When you get 1,000 views on said video, you will earn the achievement.

The Skull Island Topper

Though this hat will need to be earned through a Halloween map, it can be worn at any time, not just during the Haloween event. Some servers on TF2 have 24/7 Halloween mode, so this shouldn't be an issue. This hat also tracks the highest level Merasmus you and your team has killed.

How to earn: You must get the A Lovely Vacation Spot achievement, requiring you to enter the portal Merasmus creates after you kill him (on the map Ghost Fort), and go to the top of Skull Island.

Proffessor Speks

This requires that someone ELSE spends money by becoming a Premium Player, and crediting you as the most helpful person for learning TF2. This item tracks how many "Users you helped", people who credit you when they go premium.

How to earn: if someone recommends you from their friends list (or typing in your name), when they decide to go premium in Team Fortress 2 (by spending ANY amount of cash in the Team Fortress 2 Store), then you will recieve this item.

The Bombonicon

This item is a Badge, which is a Misc. item. Your body will always explode when you die with this item equipped.

How to earn: Obtained on the map Eyeaduct, you must kill Monoculus, and enter the portal, simiarly to how you earn the Skull Island Topper.

Taunt: The Director's Vision

This item goes in the "Action" slot in your loadout.

How to earn: You must view a saved Replay you have made, and use EVERY tool available while watching it (things like the rewind and such). This will earn you the Star of my Own Show achievement and this item.

Halloween Exclusive Items

These items are only wearable on servers with Halloween mode enabled.


Mildly Disturbing Halloween Mask



How to earn: When Halloween mode is enabled, killed players will on occasion drop a Pumpkin, which you can collect and gain crits. After collecting 20, you will earn the Candy Coroner achievement, with this hat.

Horseless Headless Horsemann's Head

How to earn: On the map Mann Manor, simply be one of the last 3 players to help kill the boss, the Horseless Headless Horsemann. This will earn you the Sleepy Holl0WND achievement.

The Monoculus!

How to earn: On the Eyeaduct map, like the Horsemann's hat, you must earn it by being one of the last 3 players to damage the boss before it dies. This will earn you the Optical Defusion achievement, with this hat.

Items Earned from Other FREE Games

As the heading suggests, these items require you to play another free-to-play game, and earn an achievement within THAT game to earn the TF2 item.

Alien Swarm Parasite

Game earned from: Alien Swarm

Game Achievement needed: "Hat Trick". To get this achievement, just play and complete 1 mission. Any map, difficulty, co-op or solo, just win it, and you earn this hat.

Spiral Sallet

Game earned from: Spiral Knights

Game Achievement needed: "Mission Accomplished". Obtained by playing through Spiral Knights until you get to the first Clockworks Terminal (basically the first dungeon). Can be done by playing co-op.

Bolt Action Blitzer

Game earned from: CrimeCraft GangWars

Game Achievement needed: "Key to the City". To earn this, just create a character and play a few online matches until your character reaches Level 6.

The Flamingo Kid

Game earned from: Super Monday Night Combat

Class: Sniper only.

Game Achievement needed: "Rookie Agent". To earn this, play the game until your character reaches Level 5.

The Triclops

Game earned from: Super Monday Night Combat

Class: Pyro only.

Game Achievement needed: "All-Star Agent". To get this, play the game until your character reaches Level 20. This can take several hours, unlike the other hats on this list, so you need to be a little patient, and actually enjoy playing the game.

Black Rose

WARNING: This game also installs nGameGuard, which is a 3rd party anti-cheat system that can be considered a keylogger, and as such, can be used against you. If you did download this game, DELETE the game and the file for AVA in your files (SteamApps, Common). To delete the nGameGuard itself, use this guide. Credit to ￪JD for this information.


Game earned from: Alliance of Valiant Arms

Class: Spy only (Knife weapon).

Game Achievement needed: "1st One Down". To earn this, just create a character and complete one online match.

Conclusion and Credits

And those are all of the free cosmetics (currently) available for Team Fortress 2. No more shall ye need worry of hatless-ness! Go forth, and claim thy goods!

If this guide helped you, please consider rating it up to tell me I helped! :)

If you have any comments, questions, or concerns, please post them below in the comments for help!

Some images were obtained through the "Gaming Through The Ages" blog, so credit to them for a few pictures.

NOTE: If you think that these hats mean the wearer is a poor player, both in skill and financial situation, then you are mistaken: not spending money on simple cosmetic items does NOT determine the "usefulness" of a player. Hats or no hats, the argument that how someone looks determines who they are is entirley invalid, in ANY situation. So please, do not comment about how much you hate F2Ps (or who you assume are F2Ps).

Thank you for reading this, and have a good day!

[Xtreme_Shoot]

Man what a forgotten times in great times game in 2014. :-') <3 i wish this spirit still alives today. <3 But we will bring back these whatever costs. otherwise we never have spirit game ever again.

[somalian footjob]

For people wondering how to get some easier, go into an Achievement map and type !freeitems, !giveitems, or !givemeall (they only work once, when you get the items you cant do it again) in chat (shuffle them around until one of them works - you will know it works when you won't be able to move altought you gotta type the commands in SPAWN!! (i think so but do it to be safe and not get dissappinted)). To find an achievement server just go in your Community Servers browser and type ach and it should pop out (any Achievement map works - i think, remember to search for it in the "Internet" and not "History" or any other since you haven't played the map yet). Not only will you get some of these hats (6 or 7 hats) you will also get alot of weapons and items so use them too. PLEASE DO NOT CRAFT WITH OR DELETE THESE HATS BECAUSE YOU CAN ONLY GET THEM ONCE AND YOU WILL REGRET DELETING THEM TRUST ME HOWEVER LAME THEY MIGHT LOOK NOW YOU WILL MISS THEM!!! (COMING FROM EXPERIENCED PLAYERS).

[Epicman594]

nvm i got a friend to help me

[Epicman594]

if I have vintage pyrovision goggles and get the A Fresh Pair of Eyes achievement, would i still get the pyrovision goggles or would i just get nothing

[JJ]

fish

[....]

is it possible to get the items thats unavaible and installing them on steamunlocked?

[Poopy Joe]

The non-forgiving, I do not recommend to use any of them for crafting since you can only get them once. (By the way, some of the things here are expired, don't try to get them)

[tuna]

pro tip: to save a lot of time, just use steam achievement manager.

[Thug]

i didn't get swarm hat after i finished alien swarm on easy mode with random people scam!

[PEOPLE TOUCHER]

Sus