t may be 13 years old, but Team Fortress 2 is

still an exceptional game. A distinctive visual

style with unique characters who are still

quoted and memed about to this day, an

open-ended system that lets players differentiate

themselves from others of the same class, well-

designed maps, and a skill ceiling that feels sky-high...

even modern heavyweights like Overwatch and

Paladins struggle to stand up to Valve’s classic.

Except it has two problems: it’s jam-packed

with hackers, and Valve has washed its hands of

the whole game. In a report by the ever-reliable

ValveNewsNetwork, it’s reported that Valve has

stopped development on new Team Fortress 2

content, nominally to get all hands on deck for

Half-Life: Alyx. Outside of community-made stuff

(of which there is still a healthy amount), we can’t

expect any new maps, weapons, or balance updates.

Maybe forever, maybe not. Trying to predict Valve’s

whims is impossible.

That lack of support is exacerbated by the game’s

European servers being overrun with hacking snipers

who can headshot you from across the map in an

instant. And it’s not something that happens once

or twice every few matches – at its worst, I’ve had to

re-search for matches 16 times before finding one

that was remotely playable. The main culprit is a

notorious hacker from Germany who floods games

with bots with racist names, and has been doing so

for years, but he’s not the only one. Say ‘Matt [S]-

Service’ to any Team Fortress 2 player, and they’ll roll

their eyes and sigh.

These hackers have been active in the game for

years (with their bots clocking thousands of hours

in-game), and Valve has seemingly done nothing

I

Team Fortress 2:

death by a thousand cuts?

to stop it. Using the in-game reporting tool does

nothing. Reporting their Steam profiles does nothing.

Kicking them does nothing because another four will

join in their place. Even Valve’s own anti-cheat service

is useless, as it works on a delay to prevent the rapid

development of hacks that can circumvent it... at the

cost of the matches they ruin in the meantime.

So for Valve to drop Team Fortress 2 when it is in

such an unplayable state is not only a kick in the

teeth for the players, it makes no sense for Valve’s

business. One of the defining features of Team

Fortress 2 is its item economy, with players buying

and selling weapons, hats, and other cosmetics

through the Steam Community Market.

As of writing, Dota 2, one of Valve’s more recent

cash cows, has 26,175 items for sale through the

market, with every sale giving Valve a cut of the

money. Team Fortress 2, the game Valve’s allegedly

abandoned and which is seen as being on life support

by its community, still has 21,347. Valve is going to cut

off a perfectly fine revenue source for absolutely no

reason. The game still has a healthy player count and

an item economy comparable to such heavy-hitters

as Dota 2 and CS:GO, but that won’t last if Valve keeps

treating Team Fortress 2 the way it is.

Team Fortress 2 is a classic. It has an established

fandom and numerous third-party community

servers. With a little bit of maintenance, it will, for the

most part, take care of itself. It doesn’t need to give

us new maps and game modes every six months;

it just needs the odd balance patch occasionally.

Most crucially, Valve needs to sort out the game’s

ridiculous hacking problem. The community will take

care of the rest – and that’ll only be good for Valve

in the long run.

JOE PARLOCK

Joe Parlock is a

freelance games

writer and founder of

ubi-source.com. His

favourite games are

Sonic, Left 4 Dead,

and Assassin’s Creed,

but he also loves

RPGs, simulators, and

stealth games. When

not writing, he loves

nature, photography,

and chilling with

his dog.

wfmag.cc \ 03

33