Payday 2's latest update has players in uproar all over again
Now the game's Steam mods have quit too.
Payday 2 players recently reacted in anger at the addition of paid-for weapon skins with stat-changing bonuses.
Now, Payday 2 developer Overkill has added new weapon skins with XP and cash boosting upgrades to the game's PC version.
The update has incensed the heist shooter's already disgruntled playerbase, just weeks after Overkill's last widely-criticised addition.
Payday 2's new boosts will generate more money and XP for your whole team.
These effects will also stack, so the more players in a squad that have a boost active, the more the whole team benefits as a result.
"This is kinda hilarious to me in a strange way. It's like they're just trolling their fans at this point," one Reddit user wrote.
The Payday 2 Reddit is awash with negative feedback. Top thread titles include: "F*** you Overkill 2.0", "F*** You Overkill 2: Team-Boost Boogaloo" and "RIP this sub".
Payday 2's Steam moderation team has also quit in protest. Swamped with bad feedback and disappointed in the state of the game they also play, the trio of mods announced their decision to hang up their banhammers last night.
"We've recently being [sic] under a great deal of stress after the Crimefest update," moderator Ashley wrote, referencing October's poorly-received changes. "A number of death threats thrown at us as well as much more heavy moderation needed due to a huge increase in users breaking the rules. We are not paid and have been in a very stressful situation.
"If Overkill decides to let us go as moderators it's something we are prepared for, I personally cannot sit by when they continue to promote immoral business practices. I felt the skins system needed work but could function. The recent safe update showed against that.
"I'm very sorry that it has come to this situation but the stress we have had to manage with, coupled with our unhappiness with the situation has pushed us to make this choice."
Payday 2's October update added the ability to crack open safes for random drops of loot, but you needed to buy a £1.60 drill to open them.
Overkill later responded by giving players chances to get a free drill instead, and defended its changes to the game by reasoning that it needed more funds to keep supporting Payday 2 two years after launch.
"We have a partnership with our partner 505 Games, where we have a deal to produce a specific amount of content until 2017. However, we at Overkill want to create more than what we and 505 Games agreed on," producer Almir Listo explained.
"We want to do everything we can to make Payday 2 as awesome as possible. In order to do that, we made the decision to triple the size of the crew. To ensure that we can keep the size of the team, we decided that the best approach was to introduce the Black Market update to the game."
"From an economical standpoint however, completely based on statistics, we can already see that the Black Market update is working as we intended," Listo concluded. "Right now, things are looking pretty great."
Overkill is yet to respond to the latest developments. We've asked for comment.