How to Play Arena

Arena is a style of TF2 Gameplay in which two teams are set in a relatively small map, with the goal being to eliminate the other team or to capture a central Control Point, which does not become available until late in the match. There is no respawning in Arena. It is difficult because instead of strategy based on trying to accomplish some objective, the player must come up with strategy for one single purpose: killing.

Arena maps are generally divided chronologically into two stages: territorial, and non-territorial. The former is when the RED team is generally in one spot as with the BLU team, and the latter is when there is no general spot each team can call their own. The former becomes the latter when the finding of enemies leads everybody all over the map. The former can be prolonged for an entire round by a good engineer who can keep a sentry nest going with people healing all the time in their team's base, but the latter can be brought about more quickly by a set of good Scouts who isolate the core of the opposing team.

This segregation of the round lends an important difference between this and any other style of TF2 play: in other types of gameplay, such as Payload and Capture Point, one team can be said to come from one side, and the other from the other side. This is lost in the second half of Arena matches. Scouts can use this to their advantage. It is difficult to Scout in the first half of Arena matches, as everybody is generally in the same spot, but once everyone scatters, the Scout becomes the main killer. If you're playing Scout, you should be focusing on hit and run for the first half, while going for kills in the second half. Not only will the other team be weaker (barring good Medics), but they will be all over the place.

Healing is important in Arena. There are no medpacks, and once you die, you're not coming back. Therefore, it's important to have at least one Medic on your team, which should avoid combat at all costs. This becomes hard in the second part of Arena matches, as combat is all over the place. Therefore, a Heavy or Soldier should be protecting the Medic from harm.

The point is a good way to get turtling Spies or Engineers away from their comfort zone and towards combat. If people are capping, they will win unless stopped. Therefore, they will come out the woodwork to try and kill you. If there's only one person left on the other team, and they're turtling waiting for people to come by, try to cap, and when it gets close, they will try to kill you.

Other than this, every decision you make should be either to stay alive or to kill someone. If you're lowering in health, prefer the former, and if you're well off, prefer the latter. This is the key to Arena.