Metacritic parent company Fandom has spoken out against the ongoing review bombing of Dragon Age: The Veilguard, noting its rating website is “a place of belonging for all fans.” Over the last few days, the game has been rated very negatively by thousands of commenters, with many reviews taking aim at The Veilguard‘s diversity and inclusivity.
Some of the negative reviews feature legitimate and thoughtful criticisms, with users noting “banal” dialogue, and a lack of choice in the narrative. Other reviews use language aligned with the so-called “culture wars” to criticise the game for being “woke” – in this case, including a non-binary character, and having the option for the player character to declare they’re transgender.
Egregious, abusive reviews are being moderated and deleted by Metacritic, but some commenters are using this as evidence of their opinions being “censored” to protect a “woke psyop”. Suffice to say there’s some wild conspiracies doing the rounds on Metacritic and beyond, as some users allege a “forced agenda” of diversity in the game.
Read: Dragon Age: The Veilguard breaks records for EA and BioWare
Speaking to Eurogamer, a spokesperson for Metacritic parent website Fandom has doubled down on a new, stricter stance for moderation first taken after the review bombing of Horizon Forbidden West: Burning Shores. This game was targeted for depicting a possible lesbian relationship, with players given choice as to whether or not to pursue it.
“We take online trust and safety very seriously across all our sites including Metacritic,” the Fandom spokesperson said of the loud backlash facing Dragon Age: The Veilguard.
“Metacritic has 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.”
Going forward, the company will continue to strictly monitor reviews of Dragon Age: The Veilguard, and remove those with abusive language that violates Metacritic’s terms of use. As noted, Metacritic is a website designed to reflect the experiences of critics and users, but it is not a place to share racist, sexist, or homophobic language to ostracise and discriminate against others.
