# Team Fortress 2 Hacker Approved page: https://hackerapproved.com/p/team-fortress-2/ 12 people recommended Team Fortress 2 in Hacker News comments, 4 had mixed feelings and 11 criticized it, November 2025 to October 2026. It was recommended in 7 of 12 months, in 10 threads. It does not meet the Hacker Approved badge rule. **Verdict:** Free multiplayer shooter still played widely and praised for its influence on FPS games. Common caveats: cosmetic loot boxes and hats, weak Mac and Wine support, and bots and cheaters. Summary written by Claude from 27 comments. It was written before the November 2026 recount, and 26 of those comments still count. ## Why people recommend it - Free, with many players online (2 comments in the sample): "Because TF2 is free, there are like 50k people to play with me everyday." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48051469)) "Still strong today as a ftp title TF2." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46818172)) - Influential on FPS games and style (2 comments in the sample): "TF2 was massively influential to other FPS games, and it's still held with high regard by the community" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48047760)) "gave TF2 its impressive visual style" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45889201)) - Loved and still played regularly (2 comments in the sample): "TF2 was my favorite multiplayer game" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48669444)) "I love TF2. I play it all the time." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48576020)) ## What people warn about - Monetization through hats and loot boxes (5 comments in the sample): "the hats themselves completely ruined the aesthetic that they spent years painstakingly crafting" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48044258)) "Valve has and continues to make lots of money from loot boxes in both CS and TF2" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48042122)) "they threw all of that out the window in the name of selling hats" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46595535)) - Weak Mac and Wine support (4 comments in the sample): "TF2 over wine on this thing has actually slightly worse performance than TF2 on windows" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50262744)) "they have effectively abandoned their mac ports as they never updated them to 64 bit" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46371226)) "When you think of the lack of support for TF2 over the years, this is illuminating." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45852087)) - Bots and cheaters on servers (2 comments in the sample): "the bot situation in casual Team Fortress 2 was so bad that it wasn't uncommon to land in a game" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47384737)) "Counterstrike and TF2 have absurd problems with bots and cheats on official servers" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49938667)) - Dated graphics and bland story (1 comment in the sample): "And TF2 has ancient graphics." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46337833)) ## Other multiplayer shooters people recommend - [Arc Raiders](https://hackerapproved.com/p/arc-raiders/): 44 recommend, 7 mixed, 10 criticize - [Counter-Strike](https://hackerapproved.com/p/counter-strike/): 19 recommend, 10 mixed, 17 criticize - [Counter-Strike 2](https://hackerapproved.com/p/counter-strike-2/): 18 recommend, 8 mixed, 17 criticize - [Marathon by Bungie](https://hackerapproved.com/p/marathon/): 13 recommend, 2 mixed, 13 criticize ## The badge A product earns the Hacker Approved badge when at least 10 people recommend it, recommenders outnumber critics at least 2 to 1 (mixed feelings count toward neither side), it was recommended in at least 4 of the 12 months and in at least 5 different threads, and no single thread supplies more than half of the people who recommend it. Health and money products are never badged. ## Cite as Hacker Approved, "Team Fortress 2", https://hackerapproved.com/p/team-fortress-2/ (12 recommend, 4 mixed, 11 criticize; Hacker News comments, November 2025 to October 2026). Counts updated 2 Nov 2026, with data through October 31, 2026.