At long last, the Team Fortress 2 Scout update is scheduled for release next week, Valve has just announced. No specific date was pegged, but we do at least know what the first of the Scout"s unlockables items will be: The Sandman.

As you might have guessed from the image above, The Sandman is a bat allowing you to hit baseballs at your enemies. Striking an enemy with a baseball will stun him, with the length of the stun increasing as the distance the ball travel increases. The drawback here is that you can"t use the Scout"s handy double jump while wielding The Sandman.

More details will be revealed over the next week on the official TF2 website -- check it out here.