Publisher calls out Metacritic after hit indie JRPG gets inexplicably review bombed
Review bombs are an endemic part of the modern media landscape at this point. Whether they're about player frustration(opens in new tab), politics, or just because a crypto company bought your game(opens in new tab), we've all become well-accustomed to the long red candles that pockmark Metacritic and Steam user review charts during periods of controversy. But there's usually some discernible reason for the review bombs, even if it's a really bad one.
Not so in the case of Chained Echoes(opens in new tab), a 16-bit throwback JRPG from developer Matthias Linda that is, by all accounts, really rather good(opens in new tab). But as spotted by GamesRadar(opens in new tab), its Metacritic user review score wilted beneath a wave of negative reviews that contained no actual written text whatsoever, leaving its dev and publisher helpless to do anything about it.
Now it happened to us. @ChainedEchoes has been review bombed on Metacritic. Just plain ratings, no reviews. No reasons. We don't know why, it just happened. Didn't @metacritic want to stop this nonsense? Guess only for AAA games. #indiedev #metacritic #gamedev pic.twitter.com/Qit6pusT5FMay 9, 2023
«Chained Echoes has been review bombed on Metacritic. Just plain ratings, no reviews. No reasons. We don't know why, it just happened,» wrote Michael Hoss, head of product at the game's publisher Deck13, in a tweet yesterday. «Didn't Metacritic want to stop this nonsense? Guess only for AAA games».
In fairness to Metacritic, Hoss has since pointed out(opens in new tab) that the site seems to have intervened, and Chained Echoes' user review score(opens in new tab) has shot back up to 8.6 as a result. But Hoss noted (in a tweet(opens in new tab) machine-translated from German)
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