DayZ Developer Responds To Frostline DLC Review Bombing

Review bombing is a practice that’s picked up steam over the last handful of years when players of a game feel they’ve been wronged in some way. For fans of DayZ, that happened when the Frostline DLC launched in October.

Over the last 30 days on Steam, the DLC has a 77% negative reaction with players upset about a variety of things. The bulk of it, however, involves the DLC’s cost of $26.99 and what fans see as not much content for their money.

“DayZ itself is great for the price, this price for just a map alone is not worth it, especially when there are so many better modded maps out there for free,” one player wrote. “Do not waste your money on this map, you are not missing out on much sadly.”

Said another: “For this price, they’ve handed us a rehashed map from Arma 3, stripped-down content, broken balance, and shamelessly copied ideas.”

In a response to the backlash on social media, Marek Spanel, head of developer Bohemia Interactive, said that players aren’t being forced to buy the DLC.

“Did you know that 8 million users for whom we have data on Steam played for an average of 188 hours and paid an average of 30 USD gross in DayZ?” Spanel asked.

“That means we received less than 10 cents for an hour of live online gaming, for which we host the online infrastructure and have been updating it for 10+ years. Yet Dayz Frostline is currently being review-bombed on the same platform for being too expensive: $26.99 for ‘just a map’, and some users demand ‘gimme more for less money’.”

In a separate social media post, the game’s official account said that they are reading the feedback received and “always try to make the most of it.”

“The DayZ dev team continues working hard to pack in more awesome content with each update,” the post reads. “We read carefully your feedback and always try to make the most of it. We also don’t forget about our amazing modding community – and yes, they’ve got tons of free maps that’ll keep you busy if you are not ready to join people on frosty Sakhal just yet!”

What do you think of the backlash against the DayZ Frostline DLC? Let us know down below, and join more discussions in the official Insider Gaming forums.

For more Insider Gaming, read exclusive details on a new Animal Crossing-inspired game being developed at Ubisoft. And don’t forget to sign up for our newsletter.