‘Shadowverse’ Becomes One of the Lowest-Rated Games of All Time on Steam Just a Week After Launch

Despite only launching a week ago, Shadowverse: Worlds Beyond has become one of the lowest-rated games in Steam history. The free-to-play trading card game has already amassed mostly negative reviews. Players claim the sequel has been ruined by Cygames catering to “whales”, while ignoring F2P users.

‘Shadowverse’ Becomes A Top 15 Lowest-Rated Game on Steam In Just A Week

When Shadowverse CCG originally debuted in 2016, many TCG fans praised its fun gameplay and deck-building mechanics. So, when the game’s much-anticipated follow-up, Shadowverse: Worlds Beyond, launched on June 14, many were hyped for it. However, that excitement quickly turned sour as players have seemingly turned on the sequel.

At the time of writing, Shadowverse: Worlds Beyond is in the top 15 lowest-rated games on Steam. This feat is quite impressive, considering the card battler literally came out just ten days ago. More importantly, the TCG’s “mostly negative” rating is the result of 12,167 reviews from active players.

Shadowverse could even technically be in Steam’s top 10 worst rankings if we factored in total reviews. For example, Command & Conquer 4: Tiberian Twilight has the honor of being the second-lowest rated game, but it only has 4,564 reviews. Regardless, Worlds Beyond currently has a 26% overall rating, which, again, is astonishing given we aren’t even a week after its launch.

‘Worlds Beyond’ Is not f2p-Friendly, Supposedly

As for why Shadowverse: Worlds Beyond is being bombarded by negative reviews, it’s because some players are unhappy with its microtransactions. According to some users, the game doesn’t have a friendly F2P economy. A common criticism is how much it costs to open a pack. Players have also accused Worlds Beyond of being ruined by “whales” who shell out money to crush opponents.

Here is an example of some of the mostly negative reviews the game has been receiving on Steam: “They ruined the f2p economy as the monetization is aggressively catered to whales. While it is in this state, I cannot recommend the game,” a reviewer wrote. Another frustrated Steam player posted, “I love it when my opponents super-evolve their wallet and unleash credit-card jitsu on me.” One negative review simply said, “Cygames just can’t stop making bad decisions and getting greedier and greedier over the past few years.”

That said, not everyone agrees with these negative reviews. Over on the Shadowverse subreddit, quite a few players defended the game. Users on the forum said that “pay-to-win” criticisms were grossly exaggerated. Regardless, Shadowverse: Worlds Beyond has quickly become one of the lowest-rated games of all time on Steam. So, clearly, the TCG card battler is divisive among its own player base.