Metacritic, the video game review and rating aggregator website, recently deleted about 6,000 negative user ratings forDeath Stranding, bumping up the score for the latest Hideo Kojima game.
The deleted user ratings werespottedby a Redditor who goes by the handle argandg, and who posted his discovery on the Games subreddit.
Between December 4 and 5, argandg found that negative user ratings forDeath Strandingon Metacritic had decreased from9,335to only 2,906. In comparison, positive user ratings over that same period increased from 8,368 to 8,446. The deleted negative user ratings significantly increased the game’s score from 5.1 to 7.4.
As of the time of writing, there are 8,809 positive user ratings and 3,186 negative user ratings forDeath StrandingonMetacritic, with a score of 7.3.
Metacritic did not make an announcement before removing the negative user ratings forDeath Stranding. However, it was widely believed that the move was made toaddressthe issue of review bombing, which is when people gather together to post negative ratings and reviews against a game to push an agenda.
A spokesperson for Metacritic laterconfirmedthat the negative user ratings were removed because they were flagged for suspicious activity.
“Metacritic takes issues of potential score manipulation seriously and has a number of policies in place to maintain score integrity,” the spokesperson told IGN, adding that moderators regularly go through user ratings and reviews, as well as those flagged by other Metacritic users, and removes those that violate the website’s terms of service.
It should be noted, however, that Metacritic only deleted number ratings. User reviews were not affected, as players may submit ratings without writing a review.
Death Strandingwas a prime target for review bombing, due to its high profile as the latest game from legendary video game designer Hideo Kojima. According to areviewby Digital Trends’ Giovanni Colantonio, the game is “a technical marvel with an excellent, though slow, story.”
Kojima, meanwhile, hinted that for hisnext project, he may be diving back into the horror genre. A recent tweet mentionedP.T., the playable teaser for the canceledSilent Hillsthat is already regarded as a horror masterpiece on its own.
