Town of Salem 2

friend told me to download this...... genuinely a terrible game. community is terrible not beginner friendly in anyway shape or form and no one wants to teach you everyone just says go watch a how to video. which are like an hour long

[h3] TL;DR [/h3] [b] This game is recommended IF you are willing to: [/b] [list] [*] Spend $$$ on a [i]"free"[/i] game [*] Spend time learning on how to play the game [*] Put up with the toxic community [*] And support Digital Bandidos [/list] I still enjoy this game, but I can NOT recommend it to new players, especially after the most recent "Voice Chat mode" update which removed DDoS-prevention, rendering the entire game unplayable for large periods of time due to said DDoSing. Even outside the DDoS attacks, the game has been on a downwards spiral for a while now. [h2] 1) "Free" to Play and the Learning Curve [/h2] [u] This game sabotages the experience of new players, to the point where new players are better off learning from watching YouTubers like PipeTron. [/u] Technically, ToS2 IS free to play. There is nothing monetarily stopping you from entering a lobby. However, new players are limited to 5 games per day UNLESS they pay in-game for the "Deed to the Town" (IIRC it is ~$10, but, as of writing, DDoS attacks prevent you from looking at the in-game store so I can't check). This limits how much knowledge new players can learn via experience. Then we get to "Scrolls" and "Tome of Fate". Scrolls/Tome both differently allow users to increase their chances of rolling a specific role. However, most experienced players can afford the Tome or buying more scrolls OFTEN scroll/tome the game's easiest faction to win as, Town. This usually leaves new players rolling the harder, evil/neutral roles. There is also the "Cauldron" which give out free scrolls and an upgrade to the Tome... only usable after you pay for the Deed... and it "rewards" you once-per-week unless you pay like $60+ to upgrade it (again, cannot check exact in-game pricing). [h2] 2) Toxic Community [/h2] [u] And a surprise to absolutely no-one, the community is VERY toxic, just like a lot of other communities. [/u] Sky is blue, grass is green. However, this is toxicity in a SOCIAL game. You get a lobby with "normal" people? It will probably be a good time. You get 1 or 2 toxic players? The experience is ruined. But there's really nothing else to say here, just take this as a precaution. [h2] 3) Digital Bandidos [/h2] I must preface this section, but I do NOT support harassment of anyone involving the DB team. The Town of Salem games were developed by Blank Media Games, who sold the Town of Salem IP to Digital Bandidos late 2024. DB initially terrified the community by firing the previous development team and used AI art as "placeholder" art on their web-page. After backlash, they removed the AI, and rehired TWO of the (more well-known) developers. But Digital Bandidos is still hurting the game. They added many more micro-transactions, including, but not limited to: The Tome of Fate, Deed to the Town, the Cauldron upgrades, and the (now removed but planned to return) battlepass. DB are also responsible for the mobile port and the teased console ports, an obvious cash grab because HOW does one think [i] "Console gameplay meshes well with a game designed around typing!"[/i]??? Oh right, the Voice Chat mode that is rarely played. Finally, the Discord moderation. Personally, I have only indirectly experienced a small portion of moderation misconduct, but I am not surprised it does happen. Another Steam review (by InvincibleRacoon) sums it up: [quote=InvincibleRacoon] But I cannot in good conscience recommend this game with a groomer moderator still allowed on board. [...] despite pretending to be concerned about this behavior, the other moderators did NOTHING about it. [/quote]

This is a fun game, don't take this review the wrong way. The problem is it's awful for new players because the current TI (Town Investigative) meta expects everyone to play in a very specific way. Basically anyone who's not instantly posting wills the second Day starts is considered suspicious and voted out, then reported for "throwing" when it's as simple as the Oracle not knowing what role to protect. Protecting yourself is seen as suspicious, investigating a "confirmed" player is seen as suspicious, and protecting anybody other than the player who spammed "TPLO ON ME!" at the start of the game is often treated as suspicious. I like the game. I really do. But the community can be incredibly toxic and sweaty toward anyone who doesn't already know the meta. It feels like you're expected to know years of unwritten rules from your very first match. It's genuinely easier to win as a Neutral Killing role than the Coven because somehow half your team gets outed or killed by Day 2. The Necronomicon also feels bad in certain situations, especially when you're forced to use it on a role that wasn't designed around direct killing. How am I supposed to win as a solo Hex Master when the game is actively forcing me to kill the people I'm trying to hex? On top of that, the constant DDoS attacks and server issues make it difficult to even play the game half the time. It's frustrating to get off work, hop on the game, and end up stuck on a loading screen because the servers are dealing with yet another outage or disruption. It's 2026, so I'd expect a game of this size to have better protections and recovery systems in place. Good game, bad everything else.

Can't even login and devs have posted no recent info on their socials - completely excluding and alienating new players, I've tried for a few days now and can't even create an account. Take this off the store if you can't play it!

Yeah nah, worst thing to ever happen to this game was Digital Bandidos. This game was never allowed to thrive cause of them. Cant even get the server situation sorted even after the many other DDoS attacks this game has had. They do the bare minimum to suck people in and get them to spend then they spit them out.

i love this game, but it suffers from an essential problem with its structure. if you are considering getting this game and seeing all the comments about the game's toxic community, here's a fairly experienced player's take on why it feels that way. ultimately, this game is played in the chat. that is the game's central mechanic. the way you make progress in any one match is identifying inconsistencies in other players' messages and play. moreover, the game fosters a large number of community norms that aren't immediately obvious and aren't explained at the beginning of every match. put these together and suddenly you've got a game where (1) new players feel totally lost, alienated, and targeted, and (2) many chances new players have to learn the game are cut short -- players who don't follow the norms get voted out quickly. the game expects you to fully understand what it is asking you to do before you've had the chance to learn to do it. the result is a perception of the community as an insular and toxic group that doesn't respect new players (and to some extent, that's true beyond the mechanics of the game). however -- if you give this game a try and play like twenty games, i promise you will start having fun. give the wiki a look. watch a few videos of content creators playing the game (i recommend pipetron). see how it goes; i think it's one of the best social deduction games on steam right now.

Most of my playtime is from waiting... I got to play one game and then it just didn't work Thought it looked interesting, but I'm not sure why this is a game since it dosen't work anymore??