Grand Theft Auto: The Trilogy – The Definitive Edition has become one of the lowest rated games by users on Metacritic.
Across multiple platforms [1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6] the game has an average user score just shy of 0.6 out of 10 across almost 7,000 reviews at this time of writing. The lowest score is 0.4 on the Xbox One version (albeit with only 463 reviews). Critic scores are not yet plentiful enough for official figures, but across the ten currently available, it averages out to 53 out of 100.
At this time of writing, the game on PlayStation 5 is the 10th lowest user-rated game on Metacritic (or 6th lowest when multiple platforms are ignored)- tied with Tom Clancy’s The Division 2: Warlords of New York (PC). Lower rated games include FIFA 21 (PlayStation 4), NBA 2K21 (PlayStation 4), FIFA 20: Legacy Edition (Nintendo Switch), and Madden NFL 21 & 22 (across PlayStation and Xbox consoles).
One game that holds the third lowest user rating is Warcraft III: Reforged; which on launch of January last year became the lowest rated game on Metacritic at that time. This score of 0.7 has since fallen to 0.6.
The reason for The Trilogy‘s poor reviews range from poor graphics that seem like a downgrade from the original, numerous bugs (including signs which seemed to have used AI to re-create them with poor spelling), the removal of iconic songs from the game’s various radio stations, and more. This is further compounded by the original Trilogy being delisted.
It should be noted that Metacritic’s user reviews do not verify if a user has completed or played a game. For example, the PC version of The Trilogy has user reviews for PC, despite being nigh-instantly pulled from that platform. This was seemingly over unlicenced songs, original developer notes, and even the infamous unreleased “hot coffee” minigame remaining in the code.
In February of last year a user of Reset Era orchestrated the review bombing of AI: The Somnium Files, due to the user’s grudge with the game’s content. They claimed they did it specifically to prove how easy it was to manipulate a userscore on Metacritic, citing the aforementioned Warcraft III: Reforged.
Another such game that had drawn attention to Metacritic’s user review system was The Last Of Us Part II. Despite high praise from reviewers and critics, it had a user review score of 3.3 from over 16,000 user reviews in the first 24 hours of launch.
Metacritic later placed a 36 hour grace period on user reviews for video games. Metacritic would state soon after that the decision was not motivated by reactions to any particular game.
Grand Theft Auto: The Trilogy – The Definitive Edition is available on Windows PC (via the Rockstar Games Launcher), Nintendo Switch, PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X|S. You can expect our review soon.
