Team Fortress 2 will be celebrating its 17th birthday this October, but players aren’t in a celebratory mood and are instead desperately crying to Valve for help.
Team Fortress 2 is currently being review-bombed on Steam and has dropped to “mostly negative” reviews, with players saying it’s “entirely unplayable.” Players who posted negative reviews point out how the title is swarmed with bots, making it impossible to have fun.
The issue is far bigger than just bots running rampant on the servers to farm items. They have also been “ruining players experiences by aimbotting, spamming chat and loud music, and have been vote kicking innocent players,” according to one recent Steam review. “Filled to the brim with bots. Entirely unplayable. Both disgusting AND shameful,” another one added.
On top of that, the bots are supposedly aided by other players who have been “willing to doxx, DDOS, and SWAT anyone who takes action against the problem,” according to one of the top Steam reviews.
Players’ claims of poor experiences with bots aren’t unfounded. On May 26, YouTuber TheWhat Show released a video called “The Dark Truth Behind TF2’S Bot Crisis.” In the 33-minute film, TheWhat Show shed light on how the game is struggling with just more than aim-botting, controlled by AI bots. The film claims Valve has almost given up on moderating the title so the bots and people behind them can do whatever they want. The people behind the bots allegedly even set up monetary systems, like granting specific players “immunity” from being harassed by bots after they pay a fee for the “protection.”
In 2022, long after the game became overflooded with cheaters, the community set up a “SaveTF2” campaign. Valve responded within 24 hours and promised to look into the problem. Since then, however, nothing substantial seems to have been implemented. Frustrated players have had enough, and the SaveTF2 petition has returned, currently sitting on more than 185,000 signatures.
Unfortunately, without any reaction from Valve, it’s unlikely anything will change in Team Fortress 2. Looking at the scale of the problem, the team might need to spend weeks fixing the game’s bot issues. With other titles, like CS2, also facing numerous issues and Valve seemingly developing a new hero shooter, this remains highly unlikely.
