Diablo 4 review bombing proves the system is broken
Diablo 4 might be one of 2023's biggest games, but as it's being review bombed by salty gamers, it proves the system is broken.
12th Jun 2023 13:00
Blizzard | Metacritic
Diablo 4 review bombing proves the system is broken
Diablo 4 might be one of 2023's biggest games, but as it's being review bombed by salty gamers, it proves the system is broken.
12th Jun 2023 13:00
Blizzard | Metacritic
Oh lord, the review bombs are back. The trend is a pretty sad one, frankly - in many cases amounting to political disagreement. The review bomb is a practice that sees legions of haters band together to attack a property on review aggregation sites that allow for user reviews to be collated.
Review bombing results in a severely lowered score that is supposedly from the people in a bid to convince others to stay away. Many sites are awash with negative reviews after a bombing that users simply can't read them or make sense of them, leading to people just taking the aggregated score's word for it.
Blizzard Entertainment is heating things up with Diablo 4, but despite being one of the most popular games of the month, it isn't safe from this, either. The bombers come for all of us eventually.
Diablo IV is getting review bombed
The latest game from the iconic Diablo franchise has been critically adored, and for the most part, players truly love the title's new additions and seamless transition to console for a typically PC-focussed series.
After server issues wrought the game's launch, some players have brought their immediate frustrations to the relatively permanent scores of Metacritic.
Angry gamers have appeared on the listing for Diablo 4 reviews for PC on Metacritic in their droves, and have left so many one-star reviews that the game's user score has plummeted to 4.8. This stands in stark contrast to its 87 Metascore.
Players are citing the server problems that have come with the game's hard launch, as well as the notably expensive microtransaction options for players to buy cosmetic items as the reason for their negative reviews. Either way, it's dragging Diablo 4 to new lows.
Review bombs prove that user scores mean nothing
This is indicative of a larger problem in the gaming industry when it comes to reviews, as bombs like this render user scores on aggregation sites practically useless.
If any large group of haters has come together for any reason (most notable of the bunch is the review bombing of Captain Marvel for Brie Larson's comments about bringing women's voices to the table when it comes to criticism), they can crowbar hatred into the score of any game they like.
Some would call it democracy, but others would call it a riot. It simply doesn't make sense to host user scores on games that will mislead players and misinterpret games after a bombing from a loud minority of haters. Just trust the critics. We don't bite.
About The Author
Joseph Kime
Joseph Kime is the Senior Trending News Journalist for GGRecon from Devon, UK. Before graduating from MarJon University with a degree in Journalism, he started writing music reviews for his own website before writing for the likes of FANDOM, Zavvi and The Digital Fix. He is host of the Big Screen Book Club podcast, and author of Building A Universe, a book that chronicles the history of superhero movies. His favourite games include DOOM (2016), Celeste and Pokemon Emerald.
