Forspoken has not yet had a week in its legs when it has already been destroyed by a large majority of angry players. The pill is hard to pass.
Forspoken is available on PC, and exclusively console on PS5, since last January 24 and obviously, it does not manage to seduce the players, worse still, it disappoints and angers them. The one that we initially knew under the name of Project Athia, had nevertheless impressed during its first presentation. Stunning graphics, eye-popping art direction, crazy animations, and more. Unfortunately, since its release, the soufflé has fallen and Forspoken fails to convince. The anger of the players has mounted and the game has been undergoing a real review bombing for several hours.
Forspoken disappoints and takes it seriously
On Metacritic, the game has been totally destroyed for several days and bad reviews are increasing visibly. At the time of writing, the game is struggling to hold an average rating of 3.6 for more than 800 reviews (it’s up) from players, of which more than 510 are negative. On PC, it does not even exceed 2 points. On the press side, the game has an average rating of 66 for just under 100 reviews, which isn’t huge either. Same story on Steam where it displays an “average” rating. Here, the positive and negative opinions are neck and neck.
The players are angry. On PC, many fans have big optimization concerns and some blame it on the famous DRM Denuvo, effective according to the studios, but much too greedy according to the players. Others point to the fact that the game is “empty”, “ugly”, “too short for the 80 € requested”, or even simply “not finished”.
When notes are used to be heard
This isn’t the first time a highly anticipated AAA like Forspoken gets shot down with “review bombing”. Not long ago, Pokemon Scarlet & Violet paid the price, or even more recently from The Callisto Protocol. Games as appreciated as hated which were also the victim of review bombing shortly after their release. In particular because of their major technical problems. Other titles, however they truly appreciated and even congratulated, like Gran Turismo 7 for example, have already suffered similar raids. Here the anger was often directed at things parallel to the games. Review bombing was then very often used to bounce back on controversies or protest against choices that did not please.
For several years now, free rating systems, such as Metacritic, which allow you to give an opinion on a product and even rate it, have become a real means of expression in their own right. A way of making noise to sometimes pass on a message, or simply to express one’s annoyance. While it can sometimes be difficult to sort out and tell the difference between a free negative review and a constructive one, the fact is that sites like Metacritic are becoming more and more important. Already for consumers, who are supposed to be able to get an overall idea of the quality of a product at a glance, but also for professionals. Because yes, even in the industry, ratings and reviews matter. Some publishers and / or studios sometimes even give their teams objectives to achieve, minimum scores to obtain and some groups don’t hesitate to give bonuses (or not) depending.
And that, the players know it and now use it to be heard. Here again with Forspoken. Now, in this specific case, it remains to be seen whether they will be listened to. But very often, whatever one may say, this is the case and the studios then redouble their efforts to raise the bar. This is, for example, what is currently happening with the major overhaul of Battlefield 2042 or what happened with Cyberpunk 2077, which has improved significantly since its release.
And you, did Forspoken disappoint you? What do you think of rating systems like Metacritic and the impact ratings can have?
