In response to overwhelming pressure from the Team Fortress 2 player community, the official TF2 Twitter account released a statement yesterday promising that they are working on a solution to the game’s hacker bot infestation. The tweet arrived after more than two years of silence from Valve regarding the issue, much to the excitement and skepticism of the game’s community.
The lone tweet was the fruit of a desperate last effort on the part of the TF2 player base, who organized the #saveTF2 online protest to raise awareness about the game’s current state. The result was an outpouring of nearly 300,000 posts describing players’ adoration for the game, placing the hashtag squarely on Twitter’s trending page. The movement drew support from notable online figures like SrPelo and berd, as well as TF2 content creators like FUNKe and LazyPurple. Some participants even made an appearance outside Valve’s headquarters in Seattle, Washington and met with staff members, with one who even dressed as the Spy (one of the game’s 9 classes).
In response to the official statement by Valve, many fans who participated in the protest were overjoyed to receive any kind of feedback — regardless of is substantiality — after months of uncertainty about TF2‘s future. Other participants, however, were less than convinced after Valve supposedly “fixed” the bot issue in 2020 and 2021, failing both times.
At press time, #saveTF2 remains active on Twitter, with community members continuing to speak out and hold Valve accountable.