Horizon Forbidden West is the first major PlayStation exclusive game release of 2022 and is so far one of the best-reviewed new games of the year. Horizon Forbidden West has earned widespread acclaim from critics, with praise for its graphics, gameplay, story, and more. On Metacritic, Horizon Forbidden West currently enjoys a respectable 88 critic rating for the PlayStation 5 version, but the user scores are telling a different story.
Professional Horizon Forbidden West reviews have been mostly positive, but there has been a flood of negative user reviews aimed at both the PS4 and PS5 versions of the game. Right now the PS5 version has an 8.0 user score, which is not bad by any stretch of the imagination, but it seems that the review bombing has just started in earnest, with the game having 720 negative reviews at the time of this writing and counting, many of which consist of users giving it 0/10 and 1/10.
The PS4 version of Horizon Forbidden West is getting less attention, but it is still being review bombed. At the time of this writing, the PS4 version of Horizon Forbidden West has a 6.6 user score with 160 negative reviews, many of which are 0s and 1s just like the PS5 version of the game. Of course, it's highly unlikely that the people giving Horizon Forbidden West such low review scores are doing so in good faith, though they do provide "reasons" for why they're trying to lower its user score.
Some users cite Horizon Forbidden West bugs, describing the game as "very buggy." Bizarrely, some of the user reviews even take aim at Horizon Forbidden West's graphics, which are otherwise pretty universally accepted to be excellent. Others make their intentions clearer, criticizing Horizon Forbidden West protagonist Aloy for having a "beard" and slamming the game for its "filthy woke ideology." One user review states, "I've made the mistake to buy the first one, I won't do the same again, seeing it has not changed direction and still focuses on being politically correct."
Metacritic has tried to combat review bombing, instituting a 36-hour waiting period before users could submit their reviews for any new game release. Unfortunately, this change does not seem to have curbed review bombing in the way that Metacritic may have wanted, as disingenuous people are still able to flood a game's page with 0s and 1s in an effort to drag its user score down.
On the flip side of the coin, some may argue that there are people who may be giving Horizon Forbidden West 10s in an attempt to keep its user score artificially high. Regardless of user reviews on either end of the spectrum, fans of the series can now jump into Horizon Forbidden West's massive open world and come up with their own opinion of the game.
Horizon Forbidden West is out now for PS4 and PS5.
Source: Metacritic