Team Fortress 2 hits new peak player count as Summer 2023 update reinvigorates Valve title

The Team Fortress 2 community is celebrating the long-awaited Summer 2023 update as its player count peaks in light of the first content drop in quite some time.

Despite being one of the most culturally significant games of the 2010s, Team Fortress 2 has seen its better days as Valve shifted its focus to its other titles over the past few years. 

However, on February 10, Valve teased the community with a rare blog post, announcing a forthcoming update with plans for a Summer 2023 content drop, with the community being able to contribute to its additions.

Finally, on July 13, this highly anticipated update arrived. The TF2 community can now experience the Summer 2023 update featuring a community-made game mode now turned official, community maps added to the rotation, and a plethora of new cosmetics available too. All of this has resulted in TF2 reaching its player count peak.

SteamCharts

Team Fortress 2 player count peaks after Summer 2023 update.

According to SteamCharts, Team Fortress 2 has soared past its all-time peak on Steam, with more than 200,000 concurrent players jumping in over the past 24 hours, at the time of writing.

Its new peak shot TF2 to third place overall on the Steam charts, only lagging behind Valve’s other titles, Dota 2 and CSGO.

Naturally, the update built a lot of hype in the community with many celebrating the patch implementing VS Saxton Hale as a legitimate mode, and for adding a whole host of community-made maps.

Not only that, but one map even includes a seal-feeding competition. No, really.

In the new map Selbyen, a seal appears and both teams will compete to see who can feed the seal the most amount of fish before it waddles back into the ocean. 

Meanwhile, Versus Saxton Hale was a long-existing fan-made game mode that saw a team go up against the in-universe antagonist, Saxton Hale, who would be controlled by a single player. 

All of these fresh changes and new additions have seen TF2 climbing back up the mountain as the player base is reinvigorated once again. Where it goes from here, remains to be seen. But it’s certainly clear the TF2 community would love nothing more than regular support again for the hit title.