Steam community save Fall Guys after devs pleaded to stop ‘review-bombs’

Devolver Digital and Mediatonic’s new game ‘Fall Guys’ was getting ‘review-bombed’ shortly after its August 4 release due to problems with its online launch – this prompted the devs to ask the community to stop the barrage of negative reviews.

On Valve’s Steam online marketplace, the multiplayer party game was getting thrashed with reviews from people who couldn’t connect to the game. The problem got so bad, players were reportedly queuing up for lengthy times before getting a notification that there was a connection error.

The same connection problems persisted on PlayStation 4 where an influx of people rushed to play since the title was included in the August free games for PS Plus subscribers.

While the devs attempted multiple fixes as the crowds kept filing in, they noticed the bad reviews started to stack up based on the problems.

“We’re currently being review-bombed on Steam,” the Falls Guys devs said. “We know it’s super frustrating, but if you could hold off from negatively reviewing – Until you get chance to play the game, it would really help us out.”

The unforgiving nature of negative reviews can be really damaging for small titles. While bad games can certainly merit bad reviews, early grievances for Fall Guys mostly revolved around the servers and not so much the content of the game.

“Servers are mostly down,” one reviewer said. “If you get lucky getting into a lobby, there is almost no chance that this lobby starts. Also there are tons of error messages popping around. Just move your release date if your game is buggy af.”

• Read more: Twitch streamer plays Fall Guys using jelly beans as controller

While there are reviews that contain legitimate critiques of the game, the devs saw a rise in negative takes from people with less than an hour logged into Fall Guys calling for a fix to the connection.

Fortunately, an hour later, the team saw a second wave of reviews. This time, however, it was a “positive-review bomb” that was met with pleasant surprise from the Fall Guys studio.

“Wow, you are seriously the best!” the Fall Guys account tweeted. “You’ve positive-bombed our review score back to Mostly Positive! I didn’t know that was a thing? Thank you so much for your belief in what we’re building here!”

• Read more: 5 must-know tips before you play Fall Guys

At the time of writing, there’s around 10,300 reviews for Fall Guys on Steam with around 8,000 positive reviews and 2,000 negative reviews.

Prior to launch, the beta was showcased throughout YouTube and Twitch streaming communities, leading to massive hype for the colorful party game.

As launch day progresses, the devs and community are hoping Fall Guys will stabilize to let more people in on the jelly-bean-filled action.