Slay the Spire 2's April Update Isn't Sitting Well With Players

Slay the Spire 2's first major update has sparked another round of review bombing on Steam, dropping its recent user rating to Mixed after all the negative feedback. Mega Crit's sequel to the highly influential roguelike deckbuilder launched in Early Access on March 5, 2026, to immediate success. Slay the Spire 2 quickly reached over 574,000 concurrent players, placing it among the top 20 games with the highest peak player counts in Steam history. The deckbuilder has maintained a strong playerbase a month after its release, recording a 24-hour peak of over 238,000 players, ranking as the fifth most played Steam game of April and just a few thousand shy of Apex Legends.

Mega Crit offers two versions of Slay the Spire 2's Early Access: the main build and an optional beta branch. This optional branch serves as the testing ground for experimental updates, such as enemy tuning and card balance, before they're pushed to the main game. Players who opt in to the beta can help test the new changes early and provide feedback to shape the final version. Slay the Spire 2 has reverted controversial beta changes after feedback and testing, with some proposed balance changes completely scrapped due to vocal community response.

A still image from Slay the Spire 2's reveal trailer featuring the Warrior

Slay the Spire 2 is Being Review-Bombed

Popular card-based roguelite Slay the Spire 2 is under a new review-bombing attack leading to a massive reduction in Steam review rating.

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By Filip Galekovic

Slay the Spire 2's First Major Update Faces a Second Round of Review Bombing

Players are pushing back against Slay the Spire 2's April update by review bombing its Steam page, primarily criticizing the increased difficulty of the game after changes from the beta branch were brought into the main build. Much of the backlash revolves around the rework of Doormaker, one of Act 3's bosses. The boss now cycles between three mechanics, which can exhaust cards after using them, prevent players from drawing additional cards, or remove energy after playing cards. This rework makes it significantly harder to beat the Doormaker in Slay the Spire 2 without preparing for the fight. "So the Doormaker just eviscerates your entire deck now? Who thought that was a good idea?" says one user on the official announcement post.

While the reworked Doormaker has received the brunt of the complaints, negative reviews also target several other changes introduced in Slay the Spire 2's major update. Players have pointed to buffs to Skulking Colony, a tough elite that now attacks on every turn on top of their damage cap. Concerns have also been brought up about the new Ascension 6 modifier Gloom, which makes removing cards from the Merchant more expensive, alongside broader character balance changes, particularly for Silent's cards in Slay the Spire 2. These concerns also layer on the earlier updates that aimed to nerf infinite strategies by making it harder to cycle through the whole deck with just a few core cards.

This is the second time Slay the Spire 2 has been review bombed for tuning its gameplay, but this time it concerns the main build and not the beta branch. Steam filters show that the majority of the recent negative feedback comes from Simplified Chinese-language reviews, which now makes up a larger share of total responses, approaching nearly 68,000 reviews. In contrast, English-language feedback remains largely positive, with over 49,000 reviews maintaining a Very Positive rating on Steam. A similar pattern has happened with another indie hit, where Chinese-language fans review bombed Hollow Knight: Silksong due to its poor translation. Although review bombing can present a visible and unified response to valid concerns, it's important to remember that Slay the Spire 2 is still in an experimental Early Access phase, and players can provide direct feedback in-game with just one press of a button.