Girls’ Frontline 2: 1% chance skin gacha drama boils over as Steam reviews hit Overwhelmingly Negative

The gacha strategy game, Girls’ Frontline 2, is back in the news as its most recent update has set fire to whatever popularity it had. MICA, the developers behind the game, have released a new gacha banner for people to try their luck on that’s entirely focused on skins.

Typically, even in gacha games, skins will very often be available for straight purchase or tied to a functional character. For instance, in Umamusume: Pretty Derby, a different variation of Mejiro McQueen was recently available, adding a new character and look to the roster.

However, Girls’ Frontline 2 is rocking the boat – and capsizing – as its new skin banner will require immense amounts of luck, to the point some fans have worked out it’ll be around $200 to acquire it. Rather than letting players buy skins for existing characters, the game will force them through the gacha ringer with a 1.18% chance at acquiring the skin.

Two tickets for the gacha cost around $5, and the game has given some for free, but with such a low percentage, it’ll be bunged straight into the “pity” system. Gacha games will feature a literal functional way to pity the player if they don’t get the main thing from the gacha, with Girls’ Frontline 2 requiring 100 failed pulls before it spits out the skin you want.

Almost as if the developers would know this wouldn’t be well received, this feature was only announced a couple of hours before it launched. During the Chinese livestream surrounding other parts of the game leading into this latest patch, it was never mentioned by the Girls’ Frontline 2 devs, leaving Chinese players in uproar.

Steam reviews drop to Overwhelmingly Negative

Before we dig into that, the announcement and Chinese drama were quickly followed by irate global fans. On Steam, players have review bombed it to now feature “Overwhelmingly Negative” in the most recent 500 reviews, and it has shifted down to “Mixed” overall.

This could just be the tip of the iceberg for the non-Chinese audience, but we won’t see something like what’s happening over there any time soon. On Chinese social media, Girls’ Frontline 2’s issues had become the sixth most spoken about issue on the forum Tieba.

However, in a surprise announcement (and after some badgering), MICA is actually meeting with members of the top clans in the game. From the machine-translated letter:

“To better listen to your thoughts, effectively gather feedback from different channels, and to show our sincerity in communication, we’ve decided to host a special offline open communication day focused on the Event Layer gameplay. We are now recruiting online and inviting commanders who have feedback and time to join us for an in-depth face-to-face exchange with the Girls’ Frontline 2: Exilium team.

“We hope this opportunity allows commanders to understand different perspectives and express their voices more effectively, giving the team real insights and constructive suggestions to help shape the future development of the Event Layer gameplay.”

Girls’ Frontline 2 meeting comes with conditions

The meeting comes with a string of rules, and we might never actually hear about what happened inside the room. That’s thanks to the apparent non-disclosure agreement (NDA) preventing any conversation about the meeting.

According to a translated post, the following restrictions will be in place:

1. Players must fill in a questionnaire with their personal information.
2. Mica will choose 20 players from the questionnaire to participate in the meeting.
3. They will have to sign an NDA and will therefore not be able to say anything about how the meeting went.
4. There will be no livestream of the meeting.

The meeting is scheduled for August 17, so we’ll probably have a very flat, milquetoast follow-up then. If the developers aren’t willing to let the players talk about what’s happened during the meeting, don’t hold out hope that there’ll be a meaningful update anytime soon.

As players try to fight back against the rising monetisation of Girls’ Frontline 2, let’s remember what they’re fighting for…

Oh.