Team Fortress 2 has been review-bombed on Steam as players continue to protest Valve’s silence in addressing the game’s biggest problems, namely its ongoing struggle with bot lobbies.
Without Valve’s seminal hero shooter Team Fortress 2, cultural touchstones like Overwatch or countless memes from Garry’s Mod and Source Filmmaker wouldn’t exist.
However, despite the 2007 iconic shooter’s importance, the game has been slow to receive new content in recent years, and lately, TF2 lobbies have frequently been overtaken by bots. In response to the inaction on Valve’s part, players started the Save TF2 petition as a way to raise greater awareness for the state of the game.
Amid the protest, Team Fortress 2 has since been review bombed on Steam, falling to a ‘mostly negative’ rating on the dev’s very own platform.
The negative reviews started on May 26, the same day the Save TF2 petition was announced, with TF2 getting hundreds of negative reviews. However, it wasn’t until June 3 that the floodgates truly began to open up.
The review bomb was planned by the fans who started the Save TF2 petition, that on June 3, they would flood social media with the #FixTF2 to showcase the massive problems players face against rampant bots, hackers, and DDoS attackers.
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On this date, TF2 received 6,793 negative reviews, and on the next day, it received a further 10,473 negative reviews, which resulted in the game’s rating on Steam to plummet.
it's time to get together and take a stance. #FixTF2 June 3rd! Get ready to put the issue at hand in the spotlight. ENOUGH IS ENOUGH! Learn more at: https://t.co/r1DnhTxBcC #SaveTF2 pic.twitter.com/VRXeu7akdL
— heavy team fortres 2 (@heavyfortres) May 26, 2024
“Very sad to see what this game has degraded to,” a negative reviewer wrote of the current state of TF2. “I haven’t played TF2 for years, I come back a few months ago and this is how the game is treated? I have lost all respect in Valve as a company for the consumer.”
Another TF2 fan’s negative review reads, “The pain I feel to see a game that I love to play with friends, and has brought me moments of unbridled joy, be backhanded by Valve through and through again is saddening.”
As of writing, 214,554 players have signed the Save TF2 petition, with the number rising by the second. Valve has yet to respond to the player petition.