Burning Shores, the expansion of the game Horizon Forbidden West, is the victim of review bombing. The reason behind this phenomenon is despicable, and linked to the heroine Aloy.
Review bombing is a protest tool used by players to show their disagreement. It consists of badly rating a video game to lower the average and penalize the score displayed on aggregators. Sometimes it is put to good use, as was the case with Diablo Immortalpinned for its shameful economic model. But in the case of Burning Shoresthe DLC of Horizon Forbidden Westreview bombing becomes a simply despicable practice.
When we go to the Metacritic page of Horizon Forbidden West: Burning Shores, we can see how much of a gap there is between the ratings given by the press (82 out of 100, which is laudatory) and those of the players (3.3 out of 10, which is a very poor rating). If some negative feedback is legitimate, others point to a script element related to the heroine Aloy – a criticism that the developers would have done well without.
Warning, the rest of this article contains spoilers on the extension of Skyline Forbidden West.
Why the ending of Burning Shores is controversial
One scene in particular is pointed out by a few disgruntled people: it shows Aloy kissing Seyka, another adventurer she met at the very beginning of her new adventure. Kotaku has devoted an entire article to this passage – optional – which shows for the first time the heroine of the Horizon saga in the process of assuming her sexuality and knowing love. Issue ? The fact that she is a lesbian is not to everyone’s taste, hence the rain of bad grades received by Burning Shores. The extension does not allow flirting with men.
” It’s visually incredible, but what about the narration? Hello lesbian! What are you doing Sony and Guerilla? Stop doing that with your characters. It’s an awkward storyline, you create an amazing world, but useless secondary characters. It’s really bad. I love this saga, and I don’t want to see how you will destroy it. And now I’m thinking about the third episode, and I’m scared! “, launches GSh773, which put 2 out of 10. “ They added a lesbian love story to delight the woke culture. Aloy never showed any signs that she was a lesbian. Thank you, because thanks to that, I didn’t buy the DLC and saved some money. For me, the saga is dead “Writes Rafadsp, who has obviously not acquired the extension, but still allows himself to give his opinion.
There are plenty of comments like these on the Metacritic page of Burning Shores. “ You just added a lesbian kiss to promote the game. You’re trying to copy The Last of Us. It doesn’t work “, adds DragonKnight_96 (who put 0 out of 10). A defender of Burning Shores summarized the situation perfectly: You are probably wondering why this DLC has mainly negative feedback. This is because there is an optional scene showing a kiss between Aloy and another girl. It’s crazy, right? I’m 1000% sure most haters leave a negative comment because they can’t relate to Aloy now that she’s kissed a girl (keep in mind this is an optional quest). »
In the history of video games published by PlayStation, Burning Shores is not the only extension to have been criticized for highlighting a homosexual character. left-behindthe DLC of The Last of Us, averages 4.8 out of 10 because it shows Ellie kissing another girl. Alas, lesbophobia is still very present.
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