Highlights
- Cocoon has received rave reviews from critics and is one of the highest-rated games of the year, surpassing even Xbox Game Pass flagship game Starfield.
- Some Xbox gamers have been flooding Cocoon's review section with 1-star reviews, mostly because it is an indie game rather than an AAA title.
- Despite the criticism, Xbox Game Pass will continue to add both indie and AAA games to its lineup.
Some Xbox gamers are review bombing Cocoon, the recently-released day one Xbox Game Pass game that has earned rave reviews from critics and is in fact one of the highest-rated new game releases of the year. Cocoon reviews have praised the game's atmosphere, intriguing premise, and clever puzzle mechanics.
Cocoon's rave reviews have helped establish it as one of the year's highest-rated games. At the time of this writing, Cocoon has an 88 overall rating, making it higher-rated than Xbox Game Pass flagship game Starfield. Cocoon has helped cap off what has been an incredible month for the Xbox Game Pass service, coming hot off the heels of larger-scale, critically-acclaimed blockbusters like Starfield and Lies of P.
Unfortunately, it seems some Xbox gamers are not happy about Cocoon and have been flooding the game's review section with 1-star reviews. These low review scores have not done a ton of damage yet, as Cocoon still has a respectable 4.1 rating on Xbox, but if they continue, they could potentially knock the game's user score rating down quite a bit. It seems that these reviews are mostly just fans lashing out at Cocoon being an indie game as opposed to an AAA title. Almost none of them actually assess the game or offer any opinion on its quality. Conversely, there are 5-star reviews that seem to have been made in response to the 1-star reviews and don't offer any kind of actual review for the game either.
While some Xbox Game Pass subscribers may genuinely get annoyed at the amount of indie games vs. AAA titles that are added to the service, it doesn't make much sense to pick on Cocoon, especially in a month that saw multiple AAA games added to Game Pass. Beyond the fact that Cocoon is critically-acclaimed and will likely be on many End-Year lists, this past month has seen the addition of Starfield and Lies of P to Game Pass, with Forza Motorsport right around the corner.
Moving forward, Xbox Game Pass subscribers can expect plenty more indie games added to the lineup, alongside AAA releases. This will include some big first-party Xbox games, with Microsoft planning on having one major first-party release per quarter. Unfortunately, this doesn't seem like it will stop some disgruntled fans from review bombing the smaller indie games, so it will be interesting to see if Xbox starts enforcing any rules for its user reviews.