‘Team Fortress 2’ players are calling on Valve to solve the game’s bot infestation

Team Fortress 2 players have reached a boiling point due to Valve’s lack of intervention with bots, and are now dealing with the issue themselves.

These bots range from sniping players with unnaturally fluid and pinpoint precision, to causing lag in matches and filling the in-game chat with racist, homophobic, and generally hurtful comments.

IGN stated that last weekend its own website tip line was bombarded by hundreds of disgruntled Team Fortress 2 players criticising the current state of the game. According to the story, other gaming websites received similar messages, with the outrage seemingly originating from a YouTube video by Team Fortress 2 content creator SquimJim.

In the video titled “Maybe It’s Time We Get Valve To Do Something About TF2”, SquimJim criticises Valve and claims that, at times, Team Fortress 2 becomes unplayable due to the infestation of bots. SquimJim notes the DOTA community being vocal enough about a lack of a Diretide event in 2013 as an example, with the feedback eventually persuading Valve to include the event that year.

SquimJim also includes an email template for their viewers to use if they want to contact Valve employees regarding the issue, urging viewers to be polite and respectful in their messages, and keep them brief.

The overwhelming bot infestation issue reportedly started in mid-2020 and is theorised to be related to the title’s source code leak which occurred during the same time frame.

Some fans are also speculating that these bots may actually be the doing of fans of the game who are desperately trying to get Valve to pay attention to Team Fortress 2 again, although the latter seems a bit more farfetched. As of the time of writing, Valve has yet to respond or update the game.

In case you missed it, 343 Industries is tweaking Halo Infinite based on fan feedback.