There’s a world of difference between the player numbers and user ratings for the new fantasy deck builder.
Since June 15, 2025, there has been a new trading card game from developer Cygames called Shadowverse: Worlds Beyond The game follows the usual concept, similar to Hearthstone or Magic: The Gathering. You build a deck from various cards and play against the AI or real opponents.
Upon release, numerous fans of the genre embraced the free-to-play game, yet many warned against the new Shadowverse in Steam reviews.
Good numbers, bad numbers
Reaching a peak of 109,246 concurrent players a few days after releaseis cause for celebration for any developer releasing a game on Steam.
According to SteamDB, Worlds Beyond achieved this record yesterday afternoon, which is a huge increase compared to its predecessor Shadowverse CCG. The record for the deck builder released in 2016 was a good 24,000 players
However, the Steam reviews are anything but positive. The over 5,000 ratingsare overwhelmingly85 percent negative This puts Worlds Beyond in second place among the worst-rated games on Valve’s platform, according to the website Steam250.
For comparison, its predecessor Shadowverse CCG has a 73 percent positive rating.
Too much to pay
The criticism from players can be broken down quite simply: aggressive monetization. According to many players, it is almost impossible to put together a good deck without paying money The cards are drawn from packs, of which players can only open one per day for free; all additional cards must be purchased with in-game rupees or purchased crystals.
User Lord Zerefsummarizes the problems as follows:“I liked the original Shadoverse…you could really build your decks bit by bit for free. […] In Worlds Beyond, the cards are too expensive. You can’t convert your cards as you please, you always need three copies first! And you can forget about creating a Free2Play deck.”
In fact, in Shadowverse CCG, card packs only cost 100 of either currency and players could convert cards as they pleased to finance new packs. In Worlds Beyond, packs cost 500 rupees or crystals , and you need three copies of a card to convert it.
In the shopcost490 Crystals 9 euros, which is not enough to buy one pack. The most expensive bundle is 5500 Crystals for 90 euros. According to Steam user General Lethargy, you should stay away from Worlds Beyond unless “you’re looking for a hole to throw your money into”
It’s amazing that Shadowverse: Worlds Beyond is currently heading back toward 90,000 players and the numbers are still rising. This may be because the Japanese developer’s deck builder is much more popular in Asia and, due to the time difference, these players are just becoming active there. However, this is difficult to verify.
