Horizon Forbidden West: Burning Shores DLC’s Abusive Reviews Pushes Metacritic to Improve Moderation

Horizon Forbidden West’s much awaited DLC expansion released April 19, 2023, however, the game hasn’t been faring well in terms of player reviews on Metacritic. As reported earlier, it wasn’t the gameplay or visuals that have led to the harsh reviews, but an interaction scene that made some players go crazy. The interaction in question refers to a same-gender romance for Aloy towards the end of the story, which you can find more info here.

At the time of writing, Horizon Forbidden West: Burning Shores DLC expansion has received a Metascore of 82 and a User Score of 4.0 which is still an improvement from its lowest point, 2.7. In a statement to Eurogamer, Metacritic has acknowledged that the reviews for the Burning Shores DLC expansion have been “abusive and disrespectful” and therefore it will be working towards evolving its tools to bring in “stricter moderation.”

Moreover, Metacritic/Fandom has also stated that its website is a “place of belonging for all fans” and it takes issues of “online trust and safety very seriously.” The company says it applies to all of its websites, including Metacritic. Fandom also added that Metacritic is aware of the “abusive and disrespectful reviews of Horizon Forbidden West Burning Shores” and it has placed a “moderation system” which will work towards tracking violations of its terms of use.

Furthermore, Fandom stated that there is a team in place that “reviews each and every report” that is categorised as abusive (including but not limited to racist, sexist, homophobic, insults to other users, etc). If any violations are observed, then those reviews will be taken down. At the moment, the company is working towards evolving its tools to “introduce stricter moderation in the coming months.”