Team Fortress 2 (2007, PC, PS3, Xbox 360) is an older game, but it has held its ground in the Steam charts for years. Unfortunately, bots are taking away the fun for many players. They are now calling for help: Valve needs to do it right.
What kind of game is this? Team Fortress 2 is a classic among team shooters, originally released in 2007. And although the shooter, with its comic-like style, understandably looks a bit dated after nearly 15 years, it still remains remarkably consistent in the Steam charts.
If you look at the current overview (via SteamCharts), Team Fortress 2 is listed in 13th place among the most played games on Steam – between Path of Exile and Warframe. An average of 71,365 players over the last 30 days is noted there – and the numbers have looked similar in previous months.
But there is a problem: A part of this player base is probably made up of bots – to such an extent that many real players are losing their fun.
This is a difficulty that fans of the game have been struggling with for some time.
- As early as 2020, TF2 thrived on Steam, but already bots were annoying players with nasty functions. Players switched to community servers, but they weren’t particularly happy about it.
- Later, players resorted to unusual means and programmed their own bots to shut down the bots.
- In 2021, there was even a new player record and an update that was supposed to improve security measures against bots. However, players had already criticized that this had only a limited positive effect.
- Now there apparently are still numerous bots filling the servers, ruining the game and even leading to good players being directly accused of being bots.
The problem itself has been ongoing for some time. Now players have started another wave to draw Valve’s attention to the bots.
Fans are campaigning for attention, want to get rid of the bots
This is what fans say: In many places, you can find players trying again to address the bot problem. This starts, for example, in the Steam reviews: There, Team Fortress 2 is advertised with 93% positive reviews, it is a popular game.
The downside remains the bots: If you look at the negative reviews, they are the main point of criticism of the game (via Steam). “Good game, but terribly treated by Valve,” a user finds, “Used to be a great game, but now it’s full of bots,” another criticizes.
Even YouTuber “SquimJim” addressed the problem in a video.
There he criticizes that the bot problem has been plaguing TF2 for 2 years. He asks that developer Valve takes a closer look – while security improvements are being made, they do nothing.
As a result, players also tried to draw more attention to TF2. For example, they reached out to voice actor Robin Atkin Downes, who worked on the game.
He responded to the community, saying that although he worked as a voice actor on the game, he is not employed by Valve. However, he wants to help and try to reach out to the developer.
Even the official Twitter account for Payday 2, a completely different game, briefly commented on the topic:
Furthermore, international gaming portals like IGN and Kotaku report that as a result of the video, numerous emails from fans came in, demanding that they want their game back. They hope to draw more attention to the problem this way.
So far, there has been no response from Valve, the developer, on the topic. Whether there will be improvements given the age of the shooter is at least currently open.
Team Fortress 2 is not the only game struggling with bots. Another, newer example was just “Lost Ark.” The MMO has also had bot problems since its release – you can find out more about that here.
