Complex Games, the developers of the new Warhammer 40,000: Chaos Gate – Daemonhunters, have issued a statement apologising to players after running a campaign where certain in-game items were only available to those who sat through some Twitch streams.
Via PC Gamer, while Complex probably thought they were running a fairly standard (by 2022 standards anyway) release window promotional stuff, the nature of the items and the fanbase/platform in question weren’t having it. Here’s an example of a negative review left on the game’s Steam page as a result, one of many that presumably prompted the statement:
The game would have gotten a thumbs up but for one thing. The developers for some ridiculous reason decided to put 11 ingame items(not skins or cosmetics but actual weapons and armor) behind twitch drops on the day of release. In order to get these items you not only have to create and link a Frontier account and a Twitch account but you have to watch hours and hours of inane twitch streamers prattling on instead of actually playing the game you paid for. They also are timed so if you miss them you miss them forever.
If there was another way to earn these ingame it would not be a big deal but I’m not gonna watch ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ Angry Joe for 2 hours just to get a weapon.
The Angry Joe stream was actually only 45 minutes, but their point remains. The items weren’t anything fancy or game-breaking, most of them were just very slight variations on early-game weapons and armour that you’ll move past in a few hours anyway, but it’s the spirit of the move—and it’s mandates on player’s time if they want to try out everything the game has to offer—that has upset people as much as its practical consequences.
As a result, Complex have said that every item offered during the streams will now be given away to free to all players later this month.
Ave Imperator Force Commanders,
We are pleased to see so many of you enjoying Warhammer 40000 Chaos Gate: Daemonhunters. Whilst we are pleased to see you enjoying the gameplay, we are also listening to your feedback.
One of the areas we have noted is the frustrations around the various Twitch drop campaigns we ran around the launch of the game. Whilst the sole objective of these campaigns was to drive awareness, we understand many feel this locked in-game items away from them.
This was certainly not our intention and we appreciate you sharing your thoughts on this. As such, we will make all items from every Twitch drop campaign available to players via one of our planned updates in May. We will confirm which update and exact date when this is finalised.
We hope this addresses your frustrations and you can continue to smite the forces of Chaos with these items in your Armoury.
If you haven’t even heard of Warhammer 40,000: Chaos Gate – Daemonhunters, let alone played it, I’m going to assume it’s because it’s the worst name ever and that the thought of yet another Warhammer game has caused your eyeballs to roll back into your skull.
The thing is…this game is really good, and very XCOM, so for anyone who has glossed right over it but is now preparing to double back at this revelation, I’ll be sharing some impressions of it later in the week.
