Slay the Spire 2 Review-Bombing

Recent Slay the Spire 2 Steam reviews have fallen to “Mixed” after a new update triggered a second wave of review bombing.

The sequel to developer Mega Crit’s popular roguelike deckbuilder, which launched in Early Access to “Overwhelmingly Positive” reviews March 5, received its first major update (version 0.103.2) yesterday. It’s a patch that introduced updated art, a range of UI and UX adjustments, tweaked writing for clarity, and more, but not everyone is pleased with the host of balance changes it added.

It’s resulted in an influx of negative reviews and, at least temporarily, left Slay the Spire 2 with the mustard-yellow Mixed recent reviews label. Unfortunately, it also appears to be something Mega Crit expected, with its patch notes beginning with a warning in bold: “This is still an Early Access game, so just because something made it from beta to main does not mean it’s set in stone.”

“Be sure to pay close attention when embarking on your next few runs: many things that you’ve grown used to have been re-balanced, reworked, or even removed (in a couple rare cases),” the Slay the Spire 2 patch notes added. “However, quite a few new pieces of content have also been added for you to dig into.”

At the time of this piece’s publication, a whopping 4,800 negative reviews have been posted today alone. Steam filters show that users sharing reviews in Simplified Chinese have fallen to Mixed, with most other languages reflecting a “Very Positive” or “Overwhelmingly Positive” reception.

Running many of the more popular reviews through Google Translate reveals that players appear to be disappointed in balance changes. Some have suggested Mega Crit hastily pushed out the version 0.103.2 update without consideration for fans.

“This is no longer the Early Access title I supported financially,” one user, who translated their own review, said when requesting a refund. “This is a hostile, gutted shell of what was promised. I am genuinely nauseated by every minute I have spent with this build of the game.”

As you may have noticed in the graph above, this is the second time Slay the Spire 2 has faced some level of review-bombing. The first instance happened following an earlier update in March, with many of the negative reviews posted in its wake also criticizing balance changes. As pointed out by Kotaku, Steam users in China will often take to review-bombing as a result of restrictions on social media across the country. Valve’s digital storefront in turn offers a place for players to voice their frustrations.

Some users have also started leaving positive reviews not only to share their appreciation for Mega Crit’s work but to speak out against the flood of negative reviews.

“Why are we review bombing the game????” one user said during the first wave of review-bombing in March. “The balance patch is not that bad, the game is still fun, the game is in early access and you should expect many balance changes, and THE PATCH ISN’T EVEN ON THE MAIN BRANCH ITS ON THE BETA FOR TESTING. You should ignore all the recent negative reviews complaining about the balance patch.”

As Slay the Spire 2 faces a string of negative reviews, player numbers on Steam seem to be holding strong. After launching to a staggering peak of 574,000 concurrent players early last month, the sequel currently has a 24-hour peak of 286,000 players (via SteamDB).

We gave Slay the Spire 2 a 9/10 review upon the arrival of its Early Access release. We said at the time that it “doesn’t radically rethink the original’s deckbuilding roguelike successes, but it does build on top of them in a way that reinvigorates its captivating gameplay.”

Michael Cripe is a freelance writer with IGN. He’s best known for his work at sites like The Pitch, The Escapist, and OnlySP. Be sure to give him a follow on Bluesky (@mikecripe.bsky.social) and Twitter (@MikeCripe).