Good news for Team Fortress 2 fans, especially those participating in the recent #SaveTF2 campaign, a ‘peaceful protest’ aimed at reminding Valve that their FPS game is still loved and enjoyed by many players in spite of TF2’s long standing bot woes. Valve has now officially acknowledged the problem – or, at least, felt moved enough to dig the password for the official TF2 twitter account out of a drawer and post for the first time in almost two years.
“TF2 community, we hear you! We love this game and know you do, too. We see how large this issue has become and are working to improve things.” Those are the words posted to the Team Fortress Twitter account – a small gesture of recognition, perhaps, but one that will come as very welcome to some fans who feel Valve has been too silent on the free-to-play game’s recent troubles.
By far the game’s most complained-about issue is bots, with a plague of aimbots affecting the game since the leak of TF2’s source code in 2020. However, leading community figures also say they feel that a game that still regularly hits 75,000 concurrent players (currently sitting at number seven on the steam player charts at the time of writing) deserves regular updates that have been largely absent over the last few years.
Community member FUNKe shared a video entitled ‘I miss Team Fortress 2’ explaining why they were sad about the dropoff in updates. Another TF2 creator, WeezyTF2, posted a video compelling fans to tweet using the #SaveTF2 hashtag on May 26.
Fans responded in droves, with current and former players alike sharing some of their stories about what the game means to them. Weezy said of the campaign, ‘If it doesn’t work, at least the writing on the wall is paved for all to see.’
It’ll be interesting to see where things go from here. A statement is one thing, but actual action can take time. Reddit users responding to Valve’s tweet are sceptical, with statements such as “my hopes are not high nor low” and “prepare to be thoroughly whelmed” suggesting that they aren’t anticipating too much to come from this.
Still, it’s a step in the right direction. Perhaps the added attention will lead to a new TF2 player count record one year since the last time it was broken.