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I reckon most of you are shitting bridges over the dreaded “all-class hats”, which have infected the heads of many players. Fear not! I’ve braved the filthy wastes of FPSbanana and have elected the best skins that replace these hats, so that the rate at which you see the same hats is divided by nine. Fortunately (perhaps intentionally) all hats except the Cheater’s Lament have a different model for each class, so that they can be replaced individually.
Note that each custom model has to be made to replace one specific in-game hat. And let me warn you that you can’t rename a custom hat model to have it replace a hat it wasn’t intended to, because that’ll break the whole thing because checksums or something. This is annoying in relation to some stellar hats that were made before the Gibus’ inclusion. Normally, the author supplies models for each of the class’ hats, or at least one for the gibus.

One very interesting thing to know is that on pure servers, custom models aren’t rendered at all rather than being replaced with the defaults (also because checksums). Normally this is bad (installing a custom Pyro model will make them invisible on pure servers) but seeing as you don’t want to see the Gibuses and Halos and Berets anyway…

So, let’s get cracking. You can replace them with any existing hat if you so wish, but why not use the oppurtunity to put some extra culture into the game at the expense of a hat you won’t miss anyway? For global replacements, you can use the Irish Derby Hat or the unused Boater model. Or an extra soldier helmet for all of the classes. See also Team-Coloured Berets, they’re spiffy. Note that you can delete the files for whichever class’ hat(s) you don’t want replaced, so you can mix and match until you have a combination you like.

Pyro is the most popular for the hat-making manne, as any piece of random crap suits him. For the most pedestrian option, take a look at the Snow Hat. For the excentric, the TV is for you. My favourite is the Chicken Butt. The legs jiggle!

As for the Heavy, you can adorn his head with a Valve or a Brain Slug. Connoisseurs will appreciate the Captain Falcon ensemble, but I use the Dunce Cap. It suits the gibus-wearing populace well. You can also use this epicly awesome Stalin hairdo, which I have installed for the Beret. Another beret-only replacement is the Budenovka.

Speaking of facial hair, you’d be surprised what a simple moustache can do for the Medic. If you’re tired of seeing camera beards, have fun not noticing this Unsettlingly Thin Glue-on Moustache – combine with this for epic Washington. If you somehow don’t like the wig, there’s also the Prisoner’s hat.

I’ve only found one Demoman Gibus replacer I like, the Tricorne, and it’s so beatiful I’ve even gotten to wearing the Gibus myself. Unfortunately, the Soldier, Engineer and Scout aren’t so lucky. There’s the Lampshade, the Mortarboard and the sub-standard Sailor Hat… I’d prefer you considered the all-class packs listed above.

Personally, I was underwhelmed by the Towers of Hats; they just seemed like a pile of random headwear slapped together. So some people made class-specific towers, which you can find here and here. All that remains now is the Cheater’s Lament. I haven’t seen one in ages, but you can install a fake razorback to confuse yourself when you do. Or just replace it with “fucking nothing” if you like. This unrelated jiggleboned Tuque might be worth looking at…as are these fixed Grenade Launcher and Pipe Launcher. And if you wanted the Chargin’ Targe to be more easily noticed, consider this silhouette-changing Kilt (with optional plaid texture)! Just remember that you don’t want these to be invisible should you meet a pure server.

There might be hats on the site that appeal to your tastes but not to mine, so do take a look yourself if you care to – I haven’t even talked about the handful of awesome hats that don’t replace the gibus, beret or halo. Like the French Hat of Surrendering.