Slay The Spire 2 review Bombed after Anita Sarkeesian was spotted in the credits

Slay the Spire 2 was a hit when it was released back in early access earlier this year. Gathering 574,638 concurrent players on Steam at its peak, it still maintains a surprising amount, peaking at 189,320 in the last 24 hours.

However, it has now come under fire for something that has nothing to do with gameplay or an unpopular update. No, instead, some people online realized that Anita Sarkeesian – a media critic and video game consultant – was appearing in the headlines. This was never much of a secret. Her name was always there along with two other consultants and most players seemed to enjoy the game just fine. But now that they have noticed that she contributed to the game, they are spamming negative reviews.

Recent reviews of Slay The Spire 2 are “mostly negative”

Chart showing the wave of negative reviews for Slay the Spire 2 coming from April to May.

As you can see on Steam, most of the recent negative reviews of Slay the Spire 2 mention Sarkeesian by name. They echo thoughts that many of you would have already heard about this being an “anti-gaming” move.

The wave of negative reviews in April was a reaction to an unpopular update, not a Sarkeesian revelation.

“I got angry [sic]they released an early access version of it, I wanted to support them,” reads the Slay the Spire 2 review, which sums up many other negative reviews. “now I find out they're siding with Anita Snarkeesian.

“I don't support toxic awakening, I don't support people who publicly hate video games and those who play them.”

If you have no idea what anyone is talking about, Sarkeesian was one of the women at the center of the first wave of Gamergate in 2010. She often criticized games from a feminist perspective, as critics often do with movies or television. While you can absolutely find fault with her criticism (some of her feminists actually do), much of the backlash came from those who saw her no feminist analysis of games as an attack on the gaming community.

Ironically, for all their complaints to the contrary, they are the only group whose political views prevent them from enjoying a video game. Some of the people leaving these reviews have worked over a hundred hours to now decide they hate the game.

Of course, we can't say for sure what Sarkeesian actually contributed to the game, but usually consultants are brought in, so there's a different perspective on the project. That can be for sensitivity and variety when writing or creating characters from different backgrounds, but it can also involve just consulting character designs to make sure they show up, or even help with gameplay, helping to improve the core gameplay loop. Consultants can also help with non-game development aspects such as marketing or monetization.

Judging by Sarkeesian's website, he helps out in a number of areas of game design. This includes topics like writing by women, as she mentions helping developers “reach a wider audience,” “eliminate problematic dialogue,” and “create complex, authentic characters.” There's a very real debate about how overzealous about this could sanitize the media — something some of us would argue we've seen in recent years — but given how well Slay the Spire 2 was received, it doesn't seem like Sarkeesian's advice has done the developers any harm at all, or warrants that kind of dismissive attitude.

Developer Mega Crit has yet to comment on the situation. Whether they or any of Sarkeesian's clients will issue a statement remains to be seen.

Slay The Spire 2 has been reviewed so much that Steam is warning users

Steam is warning users that Slay The Spire 2 is being bombarded with reviews.

Over the past few days, Slay the Spire 2's Steam page has continued to be hit with negative reviews due to Sarkeesian's involvement in the game. At the time of writing, 66 percent of the nearly 50,000 recent reviews for Slay the Spire 2 are negative, giving it a “Mostly Negative” score.

While it looks like the review bombardment isn't going to stop anytime soon, Steam is at least aware of the ongoing situation. Hovering over the review score will display a message that reads: “This product has scored one or more off-topic review periods”. Steam notes that it will exclude these negative reviews from the Slay the Spire 2 review score based on your preferences.