Valve takes stronger action against cheaters and bots in Team Fortress 2. This has led to a new record for player numbers
On Friday, 25 June 2021, the free2play shooter Team Fortress 2 broke a 14-year-old record on Steam. The reason was a major patch to curb the bot problem.
The long battle against bots
There have been massive problems with bots in Team Fortress 2 for a long time. The bots were spamming servers, using names with hate messages, and blasting voice chat with annoying music and shrill sounds. The vote-kick mechanic was undermined by changing nicknames and switching teams.
Already last year, publisher and developer Valve tried to get the problem under control with a patch – with moderate success. After a year, another patch was released last week, which seems to have solved the problem.
151,253 players are testing the new update at the same time
The patch not only brought new mechanics against bots into the game, but also cosmetic items, all created by the community. Many players and presumably also some bots took this as an opportunity to start Team Fortress 2 again.
In the end, there were 151,253 players at the same time – a new record for player numbers. And two days later, on 27 June 2021, there are still over 128,000 players in the shooter.
The biggest changes were made by Valve to voice chat, which is now more customisable and flexible to use. It also no longer allows you to change your name during a match by default.
The developers list further changes under “Security and stability improvements”, but without a hint as to what exactly they are. The full patch notes can be found in the announcement on Steam.
Since the release of Team Fortress 2 in October 2007, the shooter still enjoys great popularity after 14 years. We have also included it in our list of the Best Free2Play Games.
What do you think of the latest update? Did you have a bad experience with bots in Team Fortress 2? Let us know in the comments
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