Brutal review bombing forces Spectre Divide devs to drop skin prices on launch day

Mountaintop Studios has already been forced to lower Spectre Divide‘s skin prices a little under 12 hours after the game’s launch as players took to review pages to bomb the game.

BobNSwap, the game director for Spectre Divide, addressed the massive player backlash in a Sept. 4 blog post by first apologizing for the over-priced weapon skins and bundles in the store. In the same post, the developer lowered the skins’ prices by up to 25 percent, with the Cryo Kinesis Masterpiece bundle now available for 7,000 SP (around $65), down from 9,000 SP (approximately $85). This change came shortly after Spectre Divide players began review bombing the game on Steam, accusing the developer of being greedy with their “overly expensive generic skins.”

Spectre Divide players who purchased the now-cheaper skins were also issued refunds today. If you purchased any of the expensive new bundles, 30 percent of the initial SP price should have now been refunded into your account. E.g., if you had purchased the Cryo Kinesis Masterpiece bundle for 9,000 SP, you received 3,000 SP as refunded pay.

Whether the refunds and price drops are enough for the slumping Steam reviews to turn from Mixed to Positive (at the time of writing) will be seen, though the review bombing seems to have stopped.

After the drop, the Spectre Divide devs attempted to justify their initial pricing, stating: “We love our free players deeply, but we also have to pay for the servers they play on (as well as the massive initial and ongoing cost of development), so the “freeness” comes at a cost to us.” The game director also added the studio had taken what it saw as the best possible approach to constantly support the shooter’s development to improve the overall experience of the game.

Ignoring the constant server issues, if you’re a tactical shooter fan, Spectre Divide would be right up your alley—especially as it lets you to dive straight back into action after getting killed once thanks to its two-lives in every round concept (with the Spectre).