Whether it’s election results or game reviews, the common trend these days is, if you don’t like the result of something – blame bots. After all, it’s easier to blame something nebulous outside of your control than it is to take some accountability. And it’s easier to pretend that large swathes of people don’t exist and to minimize their opinion that it is to accept reality.
The long-awaited sequel to the acclaimed Naughty Dog game The Last of Us has arrived and the people have spoken. While access media critics appeared to love it, the game isn’t as popular with the people that matter – the customers.
When people want to know the general opinion about a video game, they go to Metacritic. The website is responsible for compiling criticism from the specialized press in the field and offers a numerical average.
However, the site also offers users the possibility to leave their opinions and a score, which can be very different from that of the critics who had free early access to the game.
Part II, has faced a mass of negative reviews on the Metacritic portal, which has caused some of the cast to express themselves on Twitter, accusing “bots” of being behind these bad scores.
Shannon Woodward, who provided the voice and movements of Dina, took to Twitter to say there were “a lot of very upset bots afoot today.”
Laura Bailey, who voices controversial new character Abby in the game, replied; “All the bots.”
Woodward then said that that “the bot farms are fullllyyy activated rn.”
The duo deleted their tweets after backlash.
While most agree that the game is visually appealing and has well-designed aesthetics, much of the criticism of the game stems from the controversial storyline that deviates greatly from what players loved about the original, allegedly agenda-driven narratives, as well as contrived, forced dialog with character decisions that don’t make sense to players.
