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Horizon Forbidden West: Burning Shores PS5 Review Bombing Causes Metacritic Policy Changes

• Jacob Chambers
• April 25th, 2023

Update: Metacritic’s parent company Fandom has issued a statement on the Horizon Forbidden West: Burning Shores review bombing saga, saying it’s changing its “processes and tools to introduce stricter moderation in the coming months”.

“Fandom is a place of belonging for all fans and we take online trust and safety very seriously across all our sites including Metacritic,” it told Eurogamer.net. Metacritic has a moderation system to track abusive and disrespectful Horizon Forbidden West: Burning Shores reviews.

“Our team reviews every report of abuse (racist, sexist, homophobic, insults to other users, etc.) and removes reviews if violations occur. In the coming months, we will tighten moderation.

Review bombing has plagued Metacritic for years, so it will be interesting to see if it can control it. Burning Shores’ rating is now 4.0 after a flurry of positive user reviews.

Update #1: Horizon Forbidden West: Burning Shores now has a Metacritic user rating of 2.8 with a majority of negative reviews. As a vocal minority opposes the release, it may fall harder throughout the day.

Original Article: Horizon Forbidden West: Burning Shores has received strong critical acclaim—we gave it an 8/10—but Metacritic is currently reviewing bombing the expansion. Despite an 81 reviewer rating, the user score is 4.8 and dropping, with more negative reviews than positive ones.

Some are criticizing the expansion’s gameplay and content, while others are upset the DLC isn’t on PS4, but most of the complaints seem to be about a plot development at the end. Read the reviews if you’re curious, but avoid them if you want to avoid spoilers.

Obviously this is just a vocal minority and won’t hurt the expansion’s success, but we expect the DLC’s user rating to drop even more over the weekend as more people finish it and share their thoughts. The backlash won’t deter Guerrilla Games, but expect it to dominate Horizon 3 discussions.