Team Fortress 2 hits new all-time player peak after Summer 2023 update

The boys are back in town

Team Fortress 2 got a surprisingly large update this week, and it seems like players are flocking to it. Steam charts show Team Fortress 2 hitting an all-time player high followi𒁏ng the Summer 🔯2023 update.

Judging by Steam tracking site , Valve’s team-based shooter climbed well above its previous player count records with the Summer 2023 addition to Team Fortress 2. Anecdotally, it seems like a lot of p🌄eople are hopping back on, too.

What’s in the content update, though? It’s actually a lot of community content. A while back, Valve had put out a call for Steam Workshop submissions for a seasonal update. The Summer 2023 update looks to be the fruits of the community’s labor, bringing in 14 new maps and even fully incorporating a game mode, VSH—Versus Saxton Hale—an asymmetrical battle between a team and one souped-up Saxton.

Hopefully, this kind of renewed interest in Team Fortress 2 could see the classic game get some more attention. While it’s a big update, it’s also a primarily community-developed one. And the community clearly still loves this game, even through all the years. It’s hard  to think of many other (non-MMO) games that could have this kind of fervent resurgence.

Here’s the content updates for the Summer 2023 update. For the full patch notes, including the general gameplay and backend updates, .

Team Fortress 2 Summer 2023 update patch notes

Summer 2023!

• Featuring 14 new community maps: Sharkbay, Rotunda, Phoenix, Cashworks, Venice, Reckoner, Sulfur, Hardwood, Pelican Peak, Selbyen, VSH Tiny Rock, VSH Distillery, VSH Skirmish, and VSH Nucleus
• Added the Summer 2023 Cosmetic Case
  • Contains 25 new community-contributed items
• Added 6 new community-contributed taunts to the Mann Co. Store
  • Taunt: Killer Joke
  • Taunt: Star-Spangled Strategy
  • Taunt: The Head Doctor
  • Taunt: Tuefort Tango
  • Taunt: The Road Rager
  • Taunt: The Killer Signature
• Added 20 new community-created Unusual effects
  • 12 new effects for Unusual hats
  • 8 new effects for Unusual taunts
• Added the Summer 2023 War Paint Case
  • Contains 10 new community-created War Paints that make-up the Summer 2023 Collection
  • Has a chance to give a taunt Unusualifier as a bonus item
• All cosmetic and taunt cases will grant Summer 2023 Unusual effects instead of their normal Unusual effects during the Summer event. This does not include crates.
• The Summer event runs through September 15th, 2023