Chained Echoes is a critically-acclaimed turn-based RPG that is notable for being one of 2022's highest-rated new game releases, but it's now found itself being review bombed months after its initial launch in December. Chained Echoes has a 90 overall critic rating according to review aggregate site OpenCritic, which firmly establishes it as one of the 10 highest-rated video game releases of last year.
Chained Echoes pays homage to classic SNES-era RPGs while moving the genre forward at the same time. It features a unique combat system that makes its turn-based battles fast-paced and strategic, while also offering an emotionally-engaging story full of interesting characters and heart-pounding twists. Chained Echoes has enjoyed near-universal acclaim since its launch last year, but the user scores for the game have taken a turn recently.
The Metacritic pages for Chained Echoes across various platforms have recently been hit by a slew of low user ratings. This in turn has pulled Chained Echoes' user ratings down quite a bit, but no actual "reviews" have been published explaining why the game is being targeted. A theory floated by Deck13's Head of Product is that users in a specific region are giving the game low scores for not supporting their language, but this hasn't been confirmed.
For some reason, the Xbox Series X page for Chained Echoes hasn't been targeted yet. Right now, that version of the game has an 88 overall critic rating with a near-identical user score rating of 8.7. Since Chained Echoes was a day one Xbox Game Pass game, one would think that it would be one of the more-popular versions of the game and therefore be subject to this review bombing effort, but it's apparently not the case.
It's unfortunate that Chained Echoes is being targeted, especially since the people behind the game don't know with 100% certainty why this is happening and can't issue a proper response. However, this should do little to hurt the game's reputation in the grand scheme of things. After all, Chained Echoes is still one of 2022's highest-rated new game releases and should be eligible for multiple awards at the 2023 Game Awards show since it released outside the eligibility window for last year's event.
Chained Echoes is available now for PC, PS4, PS5, Switch, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X.