Onmyoji Dev ZEN Studio Forced to Apologize Over Controversial SSR — But Players Aren't Buying the 'Sorry'

ZEN Studio — the dev team behind Onmyoji (阴阳师) — has done it again. After a massive controversy over SSR shikigami 'Tamamonomae' (玉取), the team was forced into a public apology under pressure from Weibo. But the announcement? It reeks of something foul.

The most inflammatory line in the apology — 'some players have concerns about SSR shikigami Tamamonomae' — instantly set the community on fire. Players pointed out that this wording essentially blames the players, pinning responsibility on 'some people' instead of owning up to their own terrible design decisions.

Test server veterans took the brunt of the disaster. One furious tester raged: 'We've been force-fed literal shit for six days on the test server — did whoever greenlit this event have flies buzzing around in their head?' To them, the delayed compensation is small potatoes; what they really want is for this incompetent studio to be replaced entirely.

The general consensus is that it was the sustained outrage on Weibo — not in-game feedback — that finally forced the devs to back down. As one highly upvoted comment put it: 'Weibo rage works' — implying the devs only respond when their public image is under threat, completely ignoring feedback within the game itself.

As for the burning question 'why do so many people still play this game?' — players gave a reality check: Onmyoji still has nearly 3 million active accounts. They're angry, sure, but they're not going to quit overnight. One veteran player admitted that no other gacha on the market checks all the boxes of 'idle-friendly with decent rewards, no limited-time banners, essentially F2P-friendly for full collection, and actual 3D combat instead of chibi sprites' — and that's exactly why the 'Former Emperor' still holds its throne.

As for the apology itself, one player delivered perhaps the most brutal review of ZEN Studio ever: 'Whether ZEN apologizes or not makes zero difference — it's the same as shitting while standing vs. shitting while kneeling. Kneeling is more polite, but they'll never stop crapping themselves.' Couldn't have said it better.