Skullgirls got review-bombed on Steam after some art changes

Skullgirls 2nd Encore from Hidden Variable Studios and Autumn games is having some community issues lately, with it getting review-bombed after a recent update.

What’s going on exactly? Skullgirls now has a Mostly Negative recent user review rating on Steam, and you can clearly see the masses that have been flocking to the Steam page to let their feelings be known:

The why: on June 26th the developers announced some changes to existing content in the game and the Digital Art Compendium. The full list of changes can be seen here and it’s not a long list so it’s an easy overview. The developers made a longer post a few days before to explain why.

Reading through the updates were done “in the spirit of better reflecting our values and our broad vision for Skullgirls moving forward” which include removing Nazi-like depictions including armbands and symbols, adjusting some character artwork to remove sexualization of younger characters and racial stereotype issues they believed to be in poor taste.

Overall, the tweaks they’ve made seem quite small but this hasn’t stopped the wave of negativity with user reviews complaining about “censorship” and going “woke”. It’s not entirely negative though, as a few hundred have also come along to leave a positive review but not enough to stop the overall recent review score looking really bad.

This YouTube video does a good look at some of the changes. Some are really a blink and you’ll miss it type of deal and most players probably wouldn’t even notice:

Since the update around 3,449 negative reviews have been posted against 868 positive reviews, and it looks like the initial reaction is now dying off.

It does also bring up the interesting topic of how in the age of the internet and the likes of Steam, even games 10 years old can suddenly have changes you really might not like. Even when they’re not technically some online-only “live service” type of thing.

Skullgirls certainly hasn’t had the best history, with the original studio Lab Zero collapsing after a games-issues-with-studio-owner/” style=”background-color:var(–article-main-background); font-size:16px” target=”_blank”>bunch of developers quit accusing the owner Mike Zaimont of various counts of inappropriate behaviour. After this Lab Zero laid off everyone else who hadn’t quit.

You can buy a copy of Skullgirls from Humble Store and Steam.

Article taken from GamingOnLinux.com.