Slay the Spire 2 sits at 35% positive in China as developer shrugs off negative reviews

Slay the Spire 2 has racked up 157,000 Steam reviews with a 63% overall approval rating. But the breakdown tells a different story: Simplified Chinese reviews make up over half that total at 82,000, yet only 35% are positive—landing it in "Mostly Negative" territory. Every other major language sits around 90% or higher. After the April 18 update, Chinese-language positive reviews for that day bottomed out at 3%.

The divide plays out like two separate games on the same storefront—one region drowning in red flags, the other swimming in five-star praise. Non-Chinese players spotted the pattern and started venting in forums about Chinese users "tanking" the score, some comments crossing into outright bias. Mega Crit co-founder Casey Yano's take? He's unbothered by the review bombing, more interested in fixing how the team communicates with Chinese players.

The real issue isn't the score itself. Casey pointed out that "players struggle to feel heard," which cuts to the heart of it. When you're exploring a sandbox world and your feedback vanishes into the void, that frustration stings worse than any bug. He made a point to add that "players in China are just people in a different place," which at least cools down the rhetoric.

Viewed that way, the review wave looks less like sabotage and more like a communication breakdown hitting critical mass. One side hasn't built proper feedback channels, the other's using negative reviews as a megaphone. Problems outside the game map are always harder to patch than what's inside it, but the developer's at least committed to building that bridge.