After 10 Years, Devs Gentrify Skullgirls and Get Slammed for It

Source: Autumn Games

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Card fighting game Skullgirls 2nd Encore has been flooded with negative reviews on Steam. All because of the changes made by the developers, which, according to fans, censor many elements of the game.

1. The changes are quite a numerous. The devs reworked many visual elements, removing, for example, scenes in which the underwear of female characters is visible, or redesigning costumes that had a red band on the arm, in a style modeled after the Nazis. The alterations also affected quite a few graphics available in the virtual gallery, as well as the story mode. For example, an image showing the afroamerican fighter Big Band being beaten by police was cut out.
2. The "Soviet Announcer" voice set has also been removed.
3. The developers even went so far as to update the digital artbook, cutting out some of the graphics.
4. The LalitoTV channel has prepared an extensive video that shows what changes were made:

1. The reaction of the players was fierce. No wonder, by the way, since the devs are changing a product already owned by users. Moreover, until now Skullgirls was famous for its slightly erotic elements and sharp humor, so the attempt to make the game softer must not have pleased many people.
2. Skullgirls 2nd Encore's product card was literally flooded with negative reviews. As a result, among those issued in the last 30 days, only 25% are positive, which Steam categorizes as "mostly negative" reception. Counting all reviews since the day of release, however, 89% praise the game.

The flood of negative reviews began after the controversial changes were introduced. Source: Steam.

1. The situation is exacerbated by the fact that the current development team is not exactly the same one that created the game. Skullgirls was developed by Lab Zero. This team broke up as a result of founder Mike Zaimont's conflict with the rest of the developers. Now the brand's development is handled by Hidden Variable, which was responsible for the mobile port, and Future Club, founded by some former Lab Zero employees.
2. Currently also the creative director and main artist of this project, namely Alex Ahad, have nothing to do with Skullgirls. All this makes some fans upset that the developers are changing the vision of the brand's original creators. It is worth mentioning that analogous modifications were also made to the mobile edition of the game.

Recall that Skullgirls debuted in 2012 on Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 consoles. A year later, an expanded version titled Skullgirls 2nd Encore was released on PC, which in time was also ported to X360, PS3, Xbox One, PlayStation 4, PlayStation Vita and Nintendo Switch consoles.