Why did they get review bombed?

According to the reviews I read on steam, the recent update just didn’t feel good direction-wise. People apparently wanted more QoL. To be fair I don’t have the game nor have I played it. That’s just the gist I got

Was also curious, so I did some searching. Review bombed feels like a deliberate word choice to shift the blame but this article sums things up: https://www.sportskeeda.com/mmo/why-no-rest-wicked-getting-slammed-negative-reviews-biggest-ever-update TL;DR, souls-like game already walking a fine line balancing difficulty & fun released a major overhaul that significantly altered the balance, allegedly making late game easier at the cost of early game getting harder. Players did not like the changes and expressed that in reviews. Dev has issued updates but it takes a lot to earn back those review points. For what it's worth, from what I can tell from the outside looking in, it looks like the fixes have been well received.

It didn't get review-bombed. It got negative reviews after the last update because people don't like it. Personally I bought it and don't like it: it's an awkward mix between diablo-likes and souls-like, while not reaching the heights of either, it also has its own unresolved issues, like lack of descriptions for weapons or abilities. This might have been fine on the first release of the early access, but we're almost a year in and people expect initial 8ssues to be fixed.

I'm totally seeing both sides here. The studio is upset that people are leaving negative reviews for what the studio thinks may ultimately be minor issues and will be fixed by release. But on the other hand, you can't expect people to review a game on anything other than the state it is **now**. That said, the gamer community is definitely pretty brutal and known to pile on with negative reviews to 'punish' the smallest changes they don't like, and that is especially true for games that get 'updates', like live-service games, or in this case, games still in early access. Players hope the bad reviews will make the developers change course, but that's no good if they go under before they can. For Early Access, the type of game they picked (something with levelling and upgrades and 'game meta') is especially prone to rough feedback too, when compared to other genres like horror or platformers or sandbox games where people are a lot more forgiving. I imagine they needed to do early access to keep the studio going and maybe to generate funds for the next Ori (fingers crossed?) and I hope that doesn't end up being the wrong choice for them.

Yeah, I got it like its first day of early access, super excited by the art style and then got *immediately* turned off by the stamina system. I don't think I'm a big souls-like fan, but I can at least tolerate Elden Ring, Lords of The Fallen, and *really enjoyed* Remnant II.