Forspoken has never gone a week without being destroyed by a large majority of angry players. The pill is difficult to administer.
Available on PC and PS5 console only since January 24th, Forspoken obviously fails to seduce gamers, worse, it disappoints and annoys them. What we initially knew as Project Athia nevertheless impressed when it was first presented. Stunning graphics, breathtaking art direction, crazy animations and more. Unfortunately, since its release, the soufflé has fallen and That prophesied can not convince. Player anger has grown and the game has been the subject of review bombing for several hours.
Forspoken disappoints and takes it seriously
The game has been totally destroyed on Metacritic for a few days and the bad reviews are increasing. At the time of writing, the game is struggling to maintain an average rating of 3.6 for more than 800 opinions (it’s up) from players, of which more than 510 are negative. On the PC not even 2 points are exceeded. On the press side, the game has an average rating of 66 for just under 100 reviews, which isn’t very great either. The same story on Steam, where it shows an “average” rating. Here positive and negative opinions are equal.
The players are angry. On PC, many fans have major optimization concerns and some blame the famous DRM Denuvo, which studios say is effective but players say is way too greedy. Others point out that the game is “empty”, “ugly”, “too short for the asking $80” or simply “not finished”.
When notes are used to be heard
This isn’t the first time a highly anticipated AAA has fallen That prophesied is shot down with “Review Bombing”. Pokemon Scarlet & Violet paid the price not long ago, or more recently by The Callisto Protocol. Loved and hated games that also fell victim to review bombing shortly after their release. Especially because of their major technical problems. Other titles that are nonetheless highly appreciated and even praised, such as Gran Turismo 7, have already suffered similar raids. Here the anger was often directed at things parallel to the games. Back then, review bombing was used very often to bounce back on controversies or to protest decisions that were not liked.
In recent years, free rating systems like Metacritic, which allow you to give an opinion on a product and even rate it, have become a real means of expression. A way of making noise, sometimes to convey a message or simply to express one’s anger. While it can sometimes be difficult to spot and tell the difference between a free negative review and a constructive review, the fact is sites like Metacritic are becoming increasingly important. Not only for consumers who want to get an overall picture of the quality of a product at a glance, but also for professionals. Because yes, ratings and reviews also count in the industry. Some publishers and/or studios sometimes even give their teams goals to reach, minimum scores to reach, and some groups don’t hesitate to award bonuses based on that (or not).
And the players know that and are now using it to be heard. Here again with me That prophesied. In this specific case, it remains to be seen whether they will be heard. But very often this is the case, and studios then redouble their efforts to raise the bar. This is happening, for example, with the major redesign of Battlefield 2042 or Cyberpunk 2077, which has improved significantly since its release.
And you, has Forspoken let you down? What do you think of rating systems like Metacritic and the impact ratings can have?
