In a sadly predictable turn of events, a spate of Death Stranding review-bombing has already begun on Metacritic, just a few days after its release. The game, which appears to have been a commercial success, and the second-biggest launch of a PS4 exclusive this year, is far from a traditional triple-A title. As a result, it was always likely to attract some criticism. (Especially due to its often opaque marketing which made it hard to get a clear sense of what the game would be like.) However, despite that, it has generally managed to achieve a positive score average; the game is currently sitting at an 83 Metascore on Metacritic, with largely positive reviews. Unfortunately, some gamers seem to be less than convinced.
Death Stranding Review-Bombing is Not Surprising
Review-bombing has become increasingly common over the course of the last few years. In fact, it has become such a pervasive problem that Steam had to implement measures designed to combat it. Unfortunately, Metacritic remains one of the few places where review-bombing is easy. As such, disgruntled gamers have once again taken to the site to air their grievances over Death Stranding. The game’s User Score currently sits at 6.8, which might suggest a lot of mixed reviews. In fact, there are almost none. The game has only 249 mixed reviews, and 5,010 positive ones (at the time of writing). However, it also has 2,460 negative reviews.
A certain portion of the gaming audience often uses review-bombing as a tactic to attack developers or publishers. The Metro series, for example, was review-bombed following the publisher’s decision to make Metro Exodus exclusive to the Epic Games Store. In this case, however, there doesn’t appear to be any one specific issue which has provoked the Death Stranding review-bombing. A read-through of some of the negative reviews gives the sense that they have mostly been left by unhappy purchasers; gamers for whom Death Stranding wasn’t what they were expecting.
Unfortunately, this reaction shouldn’t come as surprise. Death Stranding was never going to live up to its own hype for many gamers. The game’s pre-release marketing was extremely good at attracting attention, but crucially, gave gamers almost no clear sense of what it was actually going to be like to play. As such, many gamers likely bought the game expecting something completely different. However, the fact that thousands subsequently felt the need to review-bomb the game on Metacritic is a sad indictment of how the site’s user rating system is demonstrably unfit for purpose.