Metacritic has expressed an intent to “introduce stricter moderation”, particularly when racism, homophobia, sexism, and other abusive comments are involved.

As a part of the story in Horizon Forbidden West: Burning Shores, players as Aloy will have the opportunity to share a kiss with Seyka. Seyka is a key character of the DLC and plays an important role throughout the story.

However in response to this optional content (players have to make the decision to become romantic with Seyka in-game), players have allegedly been “review bombing” the DLC. Review bombing is the act of giving a series a negative review without actually engaging with the content, they’re typically motivated due to perceived political bias or influence in media; or because of the involvement of a controversial company/cast member.

In a statement made to Eurogamer, Metacritic called attention to the ongoing review bombing and explained that while they have existing moderation tools to handle it, it may not be adequate.

“Fandom is a place of belonging for all fans and we take online trust and safety very seriously across all our sites including Metacritic. Metacritic is aware of the abusive and disrespectful reviews of Horizon Forbidden West Burning Shores and we have a moderation system in place to track violations of our terms of use.

Our team reviews each and every report of abuse (including but not limited to racist, sexist, homophobic, insults to other users, etc) and if violations occur, the reviews are removed. We are currently evolving our processes and tools to introduce stricter moderation in the coming months.”

Horizon Forbidden West has been available since February 2022 release across PlayStation 4 and PlayStation 5. In case you missed it – you can find our thorough review on the game here.