Mega Crit has yanked Doormaker, one of Slay the Spire 2's Act 3 bosses, from the game entirely and replaced it with a fresh encounter called Aeonglass. The move comes as the sequel continues to face wave after wave of review bombing tied to balance adjustments.
The developer announced the overhaul in a new patch released to the beta branch. In a statement, Mega Crit acknowledged that while Doormaker housed some engaging tactical moments, it ultimately crossed a complexity line and carried persistent design friction with certain playstyles.
"While Doormaker had interesting micro decisions in the fight, he was over the complexity threshold of what we want and had lingering issues," the studio said. "We decided that starting over fresh will let us hit what we actually want for an Act 3 boss."
The decision caps months of player discontent. Late April saw Mega Crit defend Doormaker after complaints about its frustrating mechanics, insisting the team needed time to study player feedback rather than react emotionally. Data showed Doormaker's overall difficulty and win rates were actually in line with other Act 3 bosses, the developer argued at the time. But something shifted. Rather than tweak further, Mega Crit chose deletion and replacement.
Recent reviews on Steam have turned mostly negative, though English-language reviews remain very positive. The constant balance friction has created space for review bombing campaigns that some users employ when they lack alternative channels for expressing game feedback.
Alongside the boss swap, Mega Crit is shifting its patch schedule. The team will move from weekly updates to a two-week cadence to give developers breathing room for larger changes and proper polish. "It was a lot of work so it really sucked," the studio said of the original weekly rhythm. The new cycle should also allow beta testers more time to absorb and critique changes before release.
The patch also brings The Bestiary, a new compendium screen displaying monsters, animations, and stats in a centralized location. While still a work in progress, Mega Crit hopes the feature will appeal to players eager to explore the game's enemy roster.
Character balance gets tweaks across the lineup. Silent's Blade of Ink saw its damage bump reduced, while Regent gets a reworked Sword Sage card that now synergizes with Parry. The Defect class benefits from buffs to Infused Core, Hyperbeam, Shatter, Tesla Coil+, and Uproar. Several enemy encounters also saw adjustments, including Fossil Stalker and Haunted Ship.
A slew of bug fixes address save corruption tied to crashes, black screen issues, controller navigation problems, and multiplayer state desync. The patch also restores D3D12 rendering for Intel 620 GPU users and fixes audio muting on Linux.
Slay the Spire 2 remains in early access and will likely see significant shifts before launch. The Doormaker removal signals the developers are willing to make dramatic changes when design intent and player experience don't align, even if it means starting an entire boss fight from scratch.
Author Emily Chen: "Scrapping an entire boss rather than endlessly iterating shows real confidence in design vision, but whether players forgive the rocky balance journey so far is another matter entirely."
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