Metacritic pledges stricter moderation after ‘abusive’ Horizon: Forbidden West DLC review bombing

Popular review aggregation site Metacritic has pledged to introduce stricter moderation, after Sony’s Horizon: Forbidden West Burning Shores DLC was review bombed by users.

(Warning: Spoilers for the Burning Shores DLC follow.)

Horizon Forbidden West’s story expansion was released last week and was widely praised by critics for its story and gameplay additions.

However, one plot point appears to have led to the game being review bombed on Metacritic, where it currently has a user score of 4.0 (and was as low as 2.7).

At the end of Burning Shores, players have the option to become romantic with a pivotal character introduced in the expansion, the female hero Seyka. Choosing this option will see franchise protagonist Aloy kiss Seyka.

This plot point seeming inspired many users to give the game a critical rating on the site, with many still-live comments criticising developer Guerrilla’s decision to add the romance option.

“Visually look awesome, but what about storytelling? Aloy lesbian! What are you doing Sony & Guerilla really? Stop doing it with your characters,” reads one user review.

“Hey Sony PlayStation, this is enough,” reads another. “You must see a solution to the issue of the agenda. We are in a world of entertainment, not in a world full of deviant and misguided ideas. ”

In response to the review bombing, Metacritic and Fandom told Eurogamer they were aware of the “abusive and disrespectful reviews of Horizon Forbidden West Burning Shores,” and claimed they were “currently evolving our 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,” the statement reads.

“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.

“Our team reviews each and every report of abuse (including but not limited to racist, sexist, homophobic, insults to other users, etc) and if violations occur, the reviews are removed. We are currently evolving our processes and tools to introduce stricter moderation in the coming months.”

Guerrilla Games is currently working on an online project set in the Horizon universe, alongside “epic solo adventures” starring series protagonist Aloy.