On May 22, 2026, the day after the official launch of the game's S2 season, the new version's rating on TapTap plummeted to just 2.8, with over 4,000 negative reviews added within three days. This occurred less than a month after the game's impressive debut, which saw daily active users surpass 13 million, a highlight noted in Tencent's financial report.
After two months of operation, the studio behind the game faced its most significant public relations crisis since launch. The community atmosphere was completely ignited as sentiment shifted from the initial "love-hate" relationship reflected in a 6.5 score to a complete collapse in reputation with the new version's 2.8 rating. Related discussions on the Bilibili platform exceeded 60,000 posts on the same day. A review commentary bluntly stated that this round of events "shook players' trust in the game's atmosphere, community environment, and official communication."
The S2 season's controversy was ignited by what players termed a "silent adjustment without notification." "Locke Kingdom: World" was Tencent's most successful new product in 2026. In the Q1 earnings report, Tencent's domestic game revenue reached 45.4 billion yuan, a 6% year-on-year increase, with several evergreen games achieving record-high revenue. "Locke Kingdom: World" was highlighted as a standout new product performance, with its first-month daily active user data exceeding 13 million, serving as a positive case study for Tencent's "classic IP redevelopment capability."
The community atmosphere during the S1 season was in a "honeymoon phase." The game built initial trust with players through its classic collection and nurturing gameplay and fresh art style. Early-season reputation was centered on "nostalgia," fostering positive word-of-mouth within the core player community.
When the S2 season officially launched on May 21, the official release notes spanned over 30,000 words, covering numerous new spirit balance adjustments and seasonal activity explanations. However, nearly ten detailed changes that most impacted players' daily experiences were omitted. These included the alteration of a female character's "duck sit" pose after a PVP defeat to a standing position, the removal of a classic hand-flicking animation during alchemy cauldron settlements, and the absence of details regarding certain spirit riding postures, character expression animations, and long eyelash modeling in the new season announcement.
"Stealth changes" became a high-frequency keyword. The deeper cause of player anger lay in the perceived imbalance in adjustment priorities. The S2 season contained numerous PVP and PVE balance issues, including defects affecting core gameplay such as incorrect personality and attribute values for some new spirits, which received no effective official response over several weeks of feedback. In contrast, low-intensity feedback from certain external groups was addressed by the team with a "change first, explain later" silent approach.
On the early morning of May 22, the studio issued an emergency apology statement. The announcement acknowledged that some issues stemmed from "inadequate communication methods, leading to player concerns about information transparency" and promised to roll back some modifications in upcoming versions. However, this explanation was met with even fiercer criticism in the comments section. Players' anger had already shifted from the specifics of character animation changes to a more fundamental question: whose voices deserve priority response?
Some commentary pointed out that the team made almost no substantive adjustments to PVP balance content this season, with long-term operational direction appearing unclear. As the product rapidly transitioned from a "gameplay-reliant" phase to an "operations-reliant" phase, issues such as disorganized content planning, unfocused balance adjustments, and major decisions made without prior consultation led to accumulated community grievances being fully unleashed through this incident.
From its launch on March 26 to the present, even though the game's iOS bestseller ranking briefly recovered to third place after the S2 server opening, the continuous reversal of community reputation is eroding the game's user retention foundation. The rare low score of 2.8 for the new version on TapTap clearly indicates that the game faces deep-seated product credibility overdraft. When players no longer believe the developers "listen to feedback," any subsequent commercial activities may face extremely high rates of backlash and user churn risk.
Tencent's 2026 Q1 earnings report centered on the narrative of AI deeply empowering games, with AI strategies for several evergreen games like "Peacekeeper Elite" and "Honor of Kings" continuing to be implemented, driving stable growth in user time and revenue. From an investment logic perspective, the long-term story of AI empowering the gaming ecosystem lacks a growth vehicle that young people are willing to believe in and continuously participate in. "Locke Kingdom: World" was expected to be the second major source of this expectation, tasked with capturing incremental growth among Tencent's new generation user base.
Two months after launch, "Locke Kingdom: World" had stabilized within the top ten domestic mobile game revenue rankings, with approximately $23 million in single-month revenue on the Chinese mainland iOS platform in April. However, this achievement was based on the high level of community trust during the S1 season. When trust is pushed to extremes, the game team rapidly overturned all positive perceptions established over the past two months within a single season, putting future payment conversion efficiency to a severe test. Each collaborative event and each limited-time cosmetic release may trigger a new round of trust verification. For the studio, the most pressing business question is not how low the S2 season's score falls, but rather: how many seasons will it take to repair the credibility baseline shattered by the 2.8 rating?
In media foresight reports from a month prior, analysis raised the key question of whether "Locke Kingdom: World" could achieve longevity. The answer provided by the S2 season is regrettable. A series of signals from the new season—imbalanced handling of core demands, decreased decision-making transparency, addressing minor issues while leaving major problems unresolved—exposed serious rhythm loss and priority misalignment within the project team during the transition from short-term popularity to long-term operations.
As Tencent's most successful new game based on a classic IP in 2026, the metrics of 13 million daily active users and a stable position within the top ten domestic mobile game revenues represent a massive user base. However, the risk lies in the fact that if the game team cannot quickly restore community trust and demonstrate its ability to handle multiple demands simultaneously, divisive sentiments within the community will persistently erode the product's long-term value. The TapTap score is just a number, but a 2.8 rating signifies a patterned beginning of product credibility collapse. It serves as a reminder to all manufacturers attempting to monetize classic IPs: in today's game operation paradigm, "staying silent" is far more dangerous than "saying the wrong thing," and the trust foundation eroded by "stealth changes" often requires several quarters or even longer periods of sincere performance to repair.