This month, developer Complex Games released Warhammer 40,000: Chaos Gate – Daemonhunters, which may be named after a turn-based squad tactics game from 1998, but has a lot more in common with the modern XCOM series. Bar some performance and balance issues it's been pretty well-received, but when it was announced that in-game items were being given away via Twitch drops, a program that distributes freebies in return for watching streamers play the game in question, players weren't too happy about it.
Threads on the Steam forum labeled the Twitch drops "greed", with one user complaining, "I must enslave myself not to miss the two unique streams so I can get some of the cut loot" and another swearing off the game completely, saying, "I'm just going to avoid this one sadly after the twitch crap."
User reviews on Steam dropped to Mixed, with reviewers citing issues with Daemonhunters' graphics and ways it doesn't line up with "the lore" alongside the Twitch drops, one review calling them "just extra layers of meaningful crap you have to go through to enjoy 100% of the game" while another negative review said "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."
As for the items in question, they're largely cosmetic, being named versions of the campaign's beginner weapons with small boosts like +5% chance to crit. They're the kind of gear you'll use in the early game, but quickly replace with better stuff as you upgrade and unlock it.
Still, Complex Games heard the complaints and responded. In a recent update, the developers wrote, "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."
Complex also released a patch to deal with several issues including a missing cinematic, and noted that another patch is on the way. "We are aware that some Force Commanders have been experiencing performance issues," the studio wrote, "our QA and dev teams are hard at work investigating all the reports and we will have updates to help resolve these issues very soon."
