Team Fortress 2 hit with overwhelmingly negative reviews, here’s why

Valve’s 17-year-old FPS Team Fortress 2 continues to stir up controversy, and the latest protest against TF2 bots has caused the game’s Steam reviews to plummet to overwhelmingly negative.

TF2 remains one of the classic FPS titles that has stood the test of time, remaining relevant nearly two decades later. With an average monthly player count of 74,854, it holds the 10th position among the most-played games on Steam. However, seasoned TF2 players refuse to believe the Steam player count is accurate due to the increasing number of idle and hostile bots in Valve servers.

The issue with bots has only picked up the pace, starting a second wave of online protests titled #SaveTF2. The movement has resulted in overwhelmingly negative reviews on the game’s Steam page.

Why does TF2 have overwhelmingly negative reviews on Steam?

TF2 players have been complaining for years about bots scripted to ruin games, and Valve’s refusal to actively tackle the problem has resulted in 84% overwhelmingly negative reviews in the last 30 days.

The players have started a campaign asking Valve to remove idle and malicious bots from the game. They say the issue is pervasive, with nearly every other game plagued by at least one bot. Whether it’s idle bots or cheat bots that resort to doxxing players who challenge them, the problem is intolerable.

“I know it’s no longer June 3rd, but don’t stop now! We need Valve to do something about the bots. These Bot hosts have DDos, dox, & even SWATTED people IRl—specifically Megascatterbomb. Fix your damn game, Valve,” one player wrote.

As a result, the game is getting review bombed on Steam since social media complaints over the last few years have done no good. TF2 has never faced such an intense wave of negative reviews, with a staggering 18,000 appearing in just the last few days. This is all thanks to the SaveTF2 campaign, which is an effort to get Valve’s attention. The petition highlights how Valve has moved on to other ventures like the newly-launched CS2, under-development Deadlock, and more while abandoning TF2. So far, the petition has more than 200,000 signatures urging Valve to fix the problem.

The surge in negative social media reviews stems from seasoned TF2 players and newcomers looking to join the chorus of criticism. However, some of the current negative reviews on Steam are from old-timers with thousands of hours in TF2.

“My hours speak for themselves. #savetf2,” said another negative reviewer with almost 3,000 hours in TF2 wrote.

When a similar movement happened back in 2022, the official TF2 social media handle addressed the problem and assured a fix was underway. It is possible that this significantly stronger campaign will compel Valve to address the game’s issues.