Review bombing is bad because the most organised instigators get to decide how the outside world views a game. Doesnt mean they are right or that its good for the game.
There is no guarantee the majority will bomb for the reasons you want.
It makes me think of “I didnt think the Leopards would eat MY face!”
To me, the review bombing that happened after the leaks was seen as bad because it was going against fixing the balance of Darktide.
I don’t really see it as a way to speed up FatShark’s pace but more so a shift of their attention. Currentyl the devs expressed that they will make more classes, while the playerbase wishes for more maps and for the balance to be fixed.
Review bombing is a way to signify to the studio that there are things that are more important to the players than what the devs currently want to work on. Sure they might know about it all, but then it still holds up because it goes from “We never knew players actually wanted this”. “We underestimated what players can do if they are unsatisfied enough with the state of the game”
With the release of the Abrites being a huge success, FatShark has gained a lot of profit from it. And yet almost no significant issues have even been adddressed (save the DS, PG nerf leaks). So to me it’s a sign that we have to take action if we want FS to actually do something impactful like fixing the game’s balance.
I’d more compare it to being in a hospital with a broken leg that the doctors are just ignoring because they currently want to treat a patient with a mild cold and then threatening the medics that you will amputate your broken leg and bleed out to death if they won’t treat it before the patient with the mild cold.
The things FatShark currently wants to do (new classes) can wait because there are more significant issues at hand (game’s balance) and we have to make them turn their attention from one thing to the other.
I’d personally call for both. To you, it reviews bombing might be illegitimate, and I agree, but I also see it as the best and most accessible option we have, to make FS focus on certain things they are neglecting, as of now.
It’s a pragmatic thought, but in actual reality they’ll just remove the reviews and then some. Steam explicitly just blacks out review bombs. So what you’re actually going to be achieving is getting a bunch of legitimate reviews removed alongside the organized review bomb, most likely. And probably a reaction of people leaving positive ones to countersteer.
to be fair, anyone making that statement after getting his face eaten might be dumb as a rock but badass on the level of
dudes gonna eat his own face right back, straight from the cut open leopard 
They’ve been working on DLC classes for at least a year. We’re still seeing the same cadence of free updates, which have always come with a wide range of contents.
There used to be more than 1 small map per year. It’s dropped off pretty hard. There has also only been one new weapon in that same 1 year cycle, and new weapon is a generous way to describe the power falchion.
The 3 Mortis maps that came out in 2025 are maps, they just aren’t the kind some people wanted. They are suitable for what Mortis is, which may not be popular around here but is still a swing at adding content/value for players.
I don’t think the updates have fallen off. I think they’re maybe becoming more niche, now that so many major systems have been ironed out.
I am fully behind review bombing as a practice regardless of the reasons, so long as those people actually play the game.
If more developers listened to community feedback that wasn’t review bombing, maybe I’d change my mind, but it’s very clear that Fatshark responds achingly slowly if at all to anything that isn’t tipping the Steam reviews to negative.
That there are issues with game balance is not universally held. Most people that play this game do not care, new players have to play a ton of hours before balance issues are even recognizable, the most common opinion if anyone has one is just buff weak things, don’t nerf, per a reddit poll a while back.
That there are issues with the number of maps is also not universally held. While I’m not anti-new maps, my reaction when a new map drops is that I play it one or twice and then I just go to quickplay or intentionally pick maps that aren’t that map off the mission board. It’s the same for me in VT2. All these new maps are cool but once I complete it, I’ve “consumed” the content.
I can repeat this with any “issue” affecting Darktide. It’s not cut and dry, there is no universal consensus on a large number of topics within the game. What a review bomb signals is that there is a vocal minority of the playerbase that has a certain opinion and they can just ignore that segment if they wish. If it really is widespread issue, it would show in metrics like retention, churn, and so on.
2022: 1 new mission, right after release
2023: 4 new missions
2024: 3 new missions, one of which is a short operation
2025: 1 new mission, which is a short operation
Objectively, we have been getting less missions every year. When people say they want more maps, to which you responded “free updates have been the same” they’re not referring to mortial trials arenas.
Mortis maps are made by the same people who make a large portion of the content in missions (the maps). Like Dizzy right above me, I think maps are a core competency of FS, but a huge investment for what I personally consider to be little extra replayability. I get the sense FS recognizes this, and has been focusing on investing elsewhere for the moment. Soon I think we’re going to see the Chaos Wastes equivalent, which will hopefully get more mileage out of expensive assets.
So again, no, I don’t think updates have fallen off. The new player experience improvements are smart for the long term, as is the new “campaigns” system (which is also about reusing expensive map assets).
But look, we aren’t going to agree on this, so we can just skip to the part where you call me stupid if ya want!
Nobody is talking about Mortis trials maps when they say they want more maps, Badwin. Even you should be able to acknowledge this.
As soon as someone throws “Badwin” into a message, I know it’s all downhill…
And yet I persist…
Updates encompass more than just maps and balance. And we’re still getting them on schedule. The development of classes hasn’t impeded that at all. And why would they slow maps down anyway?
I don’t care what updates contain overall as a quantity, the topic was a shift of Fatsharks attention. Hammer mentioned that Fatshark wasn’t focusing on maps and balancing despite a playerbase desire for it:
Regardless of whether or not it’s true that this is actually what the playerbase wants (but I’ve certianly never seen someone say “enough maps, stop with the maps!”) it’s a simple honest to god fact that Fatshark has been adding less of them each year. The fact that they waste time and resources on unpopular things like Mortis trials instead of adding new missions adds to that point, it’s not a counterargument.
It seems like you do have some self awareness after all.
And as Dizzy mentioned above, the balance and maps concerns aren’t universally held. I don’t consider either to be major issues affecting a broad swathe of the player base at the moment.
Look, here we are again with different opinions. How have we gotten here? Where could we possibly go from here? Offer still stands 
Probably not, but that’s also a sample of people who evidently don’t care that much about missions because they’ve stopped adding as many, yet they still play. Who knows what the playerbase would look like if they actually were adding missions with every update like early on. I know I’m about to stop playing again because I’m about through with hive scum and nothing else is new.
I’m pretty confident most of the level team has been working on DTCW assets. Hopefully I’m right. I want to see what the player base will look like after that drops.
map designers got immense talent no doubt.
I fear those in charge of planning are stretching their little resources far too thin to get one thing “done right”
a little mortis sprinkle here, a new 15 minute operation map there…
yes the design and assets are good BUT it’s not what I play as the “main game”
you want 
?
no problem, give me 6 maps based on a nurgle themed biome with new set pieces and a couple new enemies to go along and I happily churn out 40-60€
less than some days grocery bill.
but gimme something feasible, something I can sink a couple 100 hours into and still feel it being “fresh”
the stuff we got is good, otherwise I wouldnt be playing almost daily since beta.
but a bandaid here and some duct tape here isn’t gonna cut it in the long run.
get everyone together and set em to make a full nurgle campaign
besides, while I enjoy the dev notes, it aint no coincidence they’re popping up more regularly while at the same time direct CM contact (yeah I know lack of employees) has become eerily quiet.
getting facts about what has been done aint no substitute for a discussion over what could be or should be done 
Mostly depends on the cause, imo just like protests or riots in real life.
Sometimes people do it for the overall betterment of things, and sometimes it’s for the stupidest reasons or a warped worldview.
