Valve's classic first-person shooter Team Fortress 2 reached its all-time peak of concurrent players over the weekend. The game had previously seen record-breaking numbers in December thanks to a holiday update. Likewise, the recent summer update is the most probable reason for the sudden spike in players.
Team Fortress 2 released in 2007 and quickly cemented itself in the FPS genre. The varied classes, a wide selection of maps and modes, and the off-brand sense of humor gave it a unique identity among other military shooters. Now, nearly fourteen years after its release, TF2 remains a consistent heavy-hitter on the Steam player charts.
According to Eurogamer, Team Fortress 2 reached a concurrent player count of 151,253 players on Friday, June 25th. The game's previous record was 147,360 players, set in December of 2020. This is an increase of nearly 4,000 players - far from a small jump. As of this writing, the number of active players was 150,218. Team Fortress 2 is known for its cosmetics, often provided by the community. A new batch of hats and other cosmetics was added to the game recently through a summer loot crate. Players can buy keys to open these crates, which can then be sold on the Steam Marketplace or traded to friends. The latest update also brought about some new map changes and other various changes.
One beneficial side effect of the update is the fact that it breaks the plugins hackers use to flood servers with bot players. Team Fortress 2 is rather famously easy to hack, even with Valve's anti-cheat software. However, new updates tend to make such programs outdated until the developers can adapt. This means that, for the time being, players are far less likely to encounter bots while playing TF2, as Uncle Dane explained on Twitter. Unfortunately, the peace will only last so long; hackers will likely find workarounds and be back to causing trouble soon enough.
Bot infestation or not, Team Fortress 2 receiving such a boost in player count is rather remarkable. It may not chart as high as other Valve titles like Counter-Strike: Global Offensive or DOTA 2, but it proves just how beloved the game still is. Even a decade and a half since release, there are still gamers visiting the likes of Badwater Basin and Dustbowl with their friends. It's been a while since the last official "major" update. However, with numbers like these, it's easy to assume such an update will draw in even more players looking to get their FPS fix.
Team Fortress 2 is free to play on PC, Mac, and Linux.
Source: Eurogamer, Uncle Dane/Twitter