Slay the Spire 2 players leave over 9,000 negative Steam reviews in one day over a card nerf that hasn't even gone live yet—but China's Steam restrictions might bear some of the blame

Yesterday, Slay the Spire 2 developer Mega Crit pushed its "first BIG post-launch patch" to the game's opt-in beta branch, giving players a chance to test the update's changes ahead of their eventual implementation on the main branch. The beta patch brought "a huge balance pass," retuning enemies, artifacts, and both the costs and effects of a number of cards from each StS 2 character—and in doing so, it unleashed a shitstorm.

It's been less than a day since the beta patch was deployed, and in that time, Slay the Spire 2 has received over 9,000 negative reviews on Steam from players outraged over a patch that hasn't even gone live on the game's main branch.

Drawing the most ire is a change the patch made to the Silent's Prepared card, a zero-cost skill that previously allowed the player to discard one card and draw a replacement. If your current hand won't get you out of a tough spot, Prepared might give you the tool you need.

The version 0.100.0 nerf changes Prepared to Prepare, which now costs one energy and discards two cards to gain two energy on your next turn. It's a pretty drastic change for Silent players, and alongside other nerfs and enemy buffs—like a surprisingly brutal new ability for the Doormaker—it's being perceived by critical players as continuing the sequel's habit of ramping up the dangers faced in a run while providing fewer options to escape them.

But why, when Slay the Spire 2 has both an in-game feedback feature and an official Discord with a feedback channel, have players instead opted for the nuclear option of expressing their disapproval with a review bombing campaign?

Well, while internet discourse doesn't need much of an excuse to turn toxic, there are some nuances that are likely contributing to the brigading: If you check the languages of the Slay the Spire 2 review activity from the last 24 hours, you'll find that players using Simplified Chinese have by far been leaving the most negative reviews.

While I can't speak to whether all those reviews are being left in good faith, it's worth noting that Steam users in China don't have another option for providing feedback through Steam itself, because community features are blocked on the Chinese version of Steam. That includes Steam discussion forums, which—while not exactly a venue for the most enlightened dialogue—are an option some of those users might have chosen if they'd been able.

Discord, too, is unusable in China, which makes the Slay the Spire 2 server's feedback channel inaccessible. Without circumventing the country's online platform restrictions through a VPN, Chinese players have two immediate options for expressing their frustrations with a beta patch: They can use the in-game option to leave feedback, which they might expect will suffer from the language barrier between them and the small Western studio, or they can leave negative Steam reviews that they know will at least get noticed.

Because Slay the Spire 2 is too new to have a separate "recent reviews" highlight on its Steam page, its overall score among English-speaking reviewers remains "overwhelmingly positive" at 96%. Switching languages to Simplified Chinese reveals the extent of the impact: out of some 31,000 reviews, its rating is down to "mixed" at 63% positive. Generally, review bombing is a tactic prone to dysfunction, but given the context in this case, I'm not surprised to see it.