Review bombing is garbage. It’s basically vandalism, where people are desperate to communicate some message by smearing their words over the top of others. And the biggest issue nowadays is that the message is often deplorable.
This happened recently with the release of Horizon Forbidden West’s DLC Burning Shores, which added storyline content for players to explore. The cause of these review bombs pertains to a story beat within the DLC, which I initially planned to detail within this article – but instead I will allow those curious to search up the spoiler-iffic on their own whim. Typing it out and trying to explain “why” people would be upset just feels so obnoxiously stupid, considering the nature of people’s outrage is… utterly pathetic.
However, the silver lining to all of this is that the review aggregate Metacritic has finally acknowledged that “Review Bombs” of this nature are not welcome, and moderation tools will be deployed to solve it in future.
Suggestion to @metacritic
In order to avoid future review bombing/useless user scores, implement one of the following?
– You have to connect your psn, xbox live, steam or other acc
– Phone number verification
– In order to review a game, you must have played itThoughts? 🤔 pic.twitter.com/539Btj85Jr
— Pyo 5️⃣ (@mrpyo1) April 23, 2023
In fact, their plan of action is not something that requires any major development. The terms of use for Metacritic expressly define that overtly harmful or hateful abuse (including but not limited to racist, sexist, homophobic, insults to other users, etcetera) is considered a violation, and these reviews are entirely free game for removal. A representative of Fandom (The owner of Metacritic) shared a statement which details:
“Metacritic is aware of the abusive and disrespectful reviews of Horizon Forbidden West Burning Shores and we have a moderation system in place to track violations of our terms of use,”
“We are currently evolving our processes and tools to introduce stricter moderation in the coming months.”
Working within a space that deals with game reviewing, I appreciate differing opinions. A game with a wide spread of impressions can often be a great deal more interesting than something that is universally liked. Nothing against those big scoring titles, I just find the controversial elements of a game can be the spice that makes it extra nice, the things that appeal to some and maybe not others.
However, your judgement should be objective – not driven by a gross personal prejudice. And these are the skidmarks that Metacritic is working to resolve.
Some have already argued that this may be considered censorship, but dwelling on the thought process for more than 10 seconds makes it obvious that gross comments being removed is no more censorship than washing dirt off your hands could be considered censorship. Unwanted filth is unwanted for a reason – and the fact that Metacritic has to openly cite their anti-racist, sexist, homophobic and insult terms of use is really the final nail in the coffin for that argument.
The act of trying to drag down reported impressions is nothing new, and rarely it might be for a noble cause as users try and bring something important into the spotlight.
But being a scumbag is never okay.
Have you played Horizon Forbidden West Burning Shores? How do you feel about review bombing being addressed? Let us know in the comments or on our social media.
Shoutouts to Eurogamer.
