Team Fortress 2
Ranked 6 of 20 multiplayer shooters by recommenders
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.
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.
29 people gave an opinion
- recommend it
- 17
- criticize it
- 12
- approval share
- 59%
Recommended in 8 of 13 months
- November 2025: recommended
- December 2025: recommended
- January 2026: recommended
- February 2026: not recommended
- March 2026: not recommended
- April 2026: not recommended
- May 2026: recommended
- June 2026: recommended
- July 2026: recommended
- August 2026: recommended
- September 2026: not recommended
- October 2026: recommended
- November 2026: not recommended (month in progress)
Why it doesn’t carry the badge
- 17 people recommend itNeeds 10 or more, met.
- 1.4 recommenders for every criticNeeds 2 to 1 or better, not met.
- Recommended in 8 of 13 monthsNeeds 4 or more, met.
The same three rules apply to every product, and the badge can’t be bought. How the badge works
What people say about it
The reasons people give, with the number of comments that give each one. Open a reason to read what they said.
Why people recommend it
Each mark is one comment
Free, with many players online
“Because TF2 is free, there are like 50k people to play with me everyday.”
Comment from 7 May 2026 in “Valve releases Steam Controller CAD files under Creative Commons license” “Still strong today as a ftp title TF2.”
Comment from 29 Jan 2026 in “PlayStation 2 Recompilation Project Is Absolutely Incredible” Influential on FPS games and style
“TF2 was massively influential to other FPS games, and it's still held with high regard by the community”
Comment from 7 May 2026 in “Valve releases Steam Controller CAD files under Creative Commons license” “gave TF2 its impressive visual style”
Comment from 11 Nov 2025 in “Drawing Text Isn't Simple: Benchmarking Console vs. Graphical Rendering” Loved and still played regularly
“TF2 was my favorite multiplayer game”
Comment from 25 Jun 2026 in “GTA 6 Physical Copies Won't Include a Disc, Will Just Be a Code in a Box” “I love TF2. I play it all the time.”
Comment from 17 Jun 2026 in “Stop Killing Games fails to secure EU law despite 1.3M signatures”
What people warn about
Each mark is one comment
Monetization through hats and loot boxes
“the hats themselves completely ruined the aesthetic that they spent years painstakingly crafting”
Comment from 7 May 2026 in “Valve releases Steam Controller CAD files under Creative Commons license” “Valve has and continues to make lots of money from loot boxes in both CS and TF2”
Comment from 6 May 2026 in “Valve releases Steam Controller CAD files under Creative Commons license” “they threw all of that out the window in the name of selling hats”
Comment from 12 Jan 2026 in “Personal thoughts/notes from working on Zootopia 2” - Comment from 23 Dec 2025 in “Meta is using the Linux scheduler designed for Valve's Steam Deck on its servers”
- Comment from 6 May 2026 in “Valve releases Steam Controller CAD files under Creative Commons license”
Weak Mac and Wine support
“TF2 over wine on this thing has actually slightly worse performance than TF2 on windows”
Comment from 27 Oct 2026 in “New iMac with M6” “they have effectively abandoned their mac ports as they never updated them to 64 bit”
Comment from 24 Dec 2025 in “Meta is using the Linux scheduler designed for Valve's Steam Deck on its servers” “When you think of the lack of support for TF2 over the years, this is illuminating.”
Comment from 7 Nov 2025 in “Rockstar employee shares account of the company's union-busting efforts” - Comment from 1 Dec 2025 in “Games using anti-cheats and their compatibility with GNU/Linux or Wine/Proton”
Bots and cheaters on servers
“the bot situation in casual Team Fortress 2 was so bad that it wasn't uncommon to land in a game”
Comment from 15 Mar 2026 in “How Kernel Anti-Cheats Work: A Deep Dive into Modern Game Protection” “Counterstrike and TF2 have absurd problems with bots and cheats on official servers”
Comment from 2 Oct 2026 in “Redditor buys used CPU, turns out it was banned on Valorant and they are SoL” Dated graphics and bland story
“TF2 had such a bland, emptyheaded story and a weightless mech experience that it literally hurts anyone above 110 IQ.”
Comment from 23 Dec 2025 in “Vince Zampella, developer of Call of Duty and Battlefield has died” “And TF2 has ancient graphics.”
Comment from 20 Dec 2025 in “The post-GeForce era: What if Nvidia abandons PC gaming?”
Other multiplayer shooters people recommend
The four most recommended other multiplayer shooters, with the same counts for each, so you can compare like for like. The tick on each bar marks the 2 to 1 line the badge needs.
| Product | Recommend | Criticize | Approval | Months | Owned | Badge |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Arc Raiders | 52 | 12 | 81% | 10 | — | Approved |
| Fortnite | 33 | 55 | 38% | 9 | — | — |
| Counter-Strike | 30 | 19 | 61% | 11 | — | — |
| Counter-Strike 2 | 27 | 19 | 59% | 10 | — | — |
| Team Fortress 2This page | 17 | 12 | 59% | 8 | — | — |
What people said
27 of the 31 comments that mention it, newest first. Each links to the original comment.
“TF2 over wine on this thing has actually slightly worse performance than TF2 on windows”
“Counterstrike and TF2 have absurd problems with bots and cheats on official servers”
“I used to really enjoy this aspect of older games like Warcraft 3 and TF2”
“except for TF2 no one has been able to (or cared enough) allow private servers”
“TF2 was my favorite multiplayer game”
“I love TF2. I play it all the time.”
“TF2 is also slower but both still fine.”
“Because TF2 is free, there are like 50k people to play with me everyday.”
“TF2 was massively influential to other FPS games, and it's still held with high regard by the community”
“the hats themselves completely ruined the aesthetic that they spent years painstakingly crafting”
“Valve has and continues to make lots of money from loot boxes in both CS and TF2”
“loot boxes (with Team Fortress 2)”
“the bot situation in casual Team Fortress 2 was so bad that it wasn't uncommon to land in a game”
“Still strong today as a ftp title TF2.”
“they threw all of that out the window in the name of selling hats”
“I bet TF2 starts blocking unattested (and, so, Windows 10) players”
“they have effectively abandoned their mac ports as they never updated them to 64 bit”
“Loot box style underage gambling in their live service games”
“TF2 had such a bland, emptyheaded story and a weightless mech experience that it literally hurts anyone above 110 IQ.”
“And TF2 has ancient graphics.”
“I have been more or less hooked on competitive games since I first started playing them”
“TF2 over wine literally performs worse than native TF2”
“the only benefit to paying was cosmetics”
“all of which are much better games that you’ve listed”
“gave TF2 its impressive visual style”
“Team Fortress had trade pub servers with people doing sprays of literal CP”
“When you think of the lack of support for TF2 over the years, this is illuminating.”
Counts come from 1,795,640 Hacker News comments, November 2025 to November 2026. How we count. Report a mistake.