As many will no doubt know due to the heated debates surrounding the game on Twitter, The Last of Us 2, while heralded by many, hasn't gone down all that smoothly with a significant portion of the series' fanbase. As was reported when the sequel released back in June, the game's controversial nature has led to severe review bombing, with players angry at the game's polarizing narrative setting up numerous accounts on Metacritic to lower its aggregate user score.
However, it seems these Last of Us 2 detractors might just have gone one step further with the release of Ghost of Tsushima, with several accounts allegedly being set up purely to give the former a 0 / 10 review and the latter a perfect 10 / 10. The theory was first brought to light by a user going by the name Bandicoot on Twitter, however, a quick dig through Metacritic's user stats for both games turns up some interesting results.
The Last of Us 2 and Ghost of Tsushima have just under 14,000 reviews each, which is interesting considering The Last of Us released just over a month and a half ago and Ghost of Tsushima hit shelves a mere two weeks ago. To put that into perspective, Spider-Man has amassed just under 6,000 reviews, Horizon: Zero Dawn garnered 8,000 reviews, and God of War only just tops both games with around 15,000 reviews over their entire lifetimes. Evidently, the reviews are stacking up quickly for both games, however, as Bandicoot shows on Twitter, not every user post seems entirely genuine.
Many accounts that have reviewed the new releases only have two games on their record, Ghost of Tsushima and The Last of Us 2, and unsurprisingly they all seem to be dishing out the very bottom and top of the scale. The result has put Ghost of Tsushima at an incredibly high user score of 9.3 / 10, while The Last of Us 2 is currently sitting with a much more mixed 5.6.
A lot of these reviews are from fans praising Sucker Punch's extraordinary samurai epic, however, many of the reviews on Ghost of Tsushima's page seem to be boosting the game with the intention of showing Naughty Dog that they prefer more gratifying revenge stories. For example, one user claims in their review "Great game!! 100 times better The Last of Us Part 2, which basically SJW trash," while a second states "In contrast to TLOU 2 this one didn't bend the knee and made a **** NPC SJW Crap fest."
Overall, it seems as though some players want to get a message to Naughty Dog that they are unhappy with The Last of Us 2's story and are review boosting Ghost of Tsushima to send it. That being said, Ghost of Tsushima has also been a huge success financially and with fans, so it's clear the game's incredible score has only marginally been boosted by this petty tactic.
Ghost of Tsushima is available now on PlayStation 4.
Source: Metacritic
