This is a timeline of major incidents of review bombing, a tactic where a large number of users purposefully post negative reviews of a product, a service, or a business on a review website in order to damage its sales or reputation.
Video games 2000s Spore was review bombed on Amazon in 2008 after publisher Electronic Arts incorporated a digital rights management (DRM) system that limited buyers' ability to install the game more than three times. This system was meant to prevent piracy, but ultimately led to a coordinated backlash, with buyers feeling like they were "renting a broken game."
2010s The website Metacritic was criticized in 2011 for poor oversight of their user reviews, leading to rampant review bombing on popular games such as Bastion and Toy Soldiers: Cold War that brought their user rating to low levels. Mass Effect 3 was also review bombed on the site in 2012.
Titan Souls was review-bombed in April 2015 by supporters of YouTuber John "TotalBiscuit" Bain after the indie game's artist Andrew Gleeson mocked a statement that Bain made, saying the game was "absolutely not for [him]". Bain, in a following podcast, stated that the developer "has it out for [him]", leading several of his followers to review bomb the game, though Bain later expressed that he did not endorse that behavior.
The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim was review bombed in 2015 by customers after the game's introduction of paid mods, leading Valve to reverse their decision and remove the paid mod functionality. Additional review bombs for Skyrim as well as fellow Bethesda Softworks game Fallout 4 occurred following the launch of Bethesda's Creation Club in September 2017, which reintroduced the potential for paid mods.
Nier: Automata was review bombed in April 2017 by Chinese players demanding a translation of the game to Chinese, whom PC Gamer called "a powerful new voice".
Grand Theft Auto V was review bombed throughout June and July 2017 after publisher Take-Two Interactive issued a cease-and-desist against the widely used game modification tool OpenIV, as an attempt to stop single-player and multiplayer mods for GTA V and Grand Theft Auto Online. The review bombing reduced Grand Theft Auto Vs overall Steam review rating from "positive" to "mixed".
Crusader Kings II was review-bombed the same month by customers after Paradox had raised the prices in some regions.
In 2017, Valve changed policy to make unpaid games of any kind not count towards the game's review scores. The developer of Defender's Quest, Lars Doucet, stated that this policy prevented low-priced games from being review bombed. Dota 2 was review bombed in August 2017 after Marc Laidlaw, a former Valve writer for the Half-Life series, posted a "fanfic" on his personal blog that several journalists deduced was the plot for Half-Life 2: Episode 3, which had been planned for release in 2007, but appeared to have become vaporware within Valve. Players were upset that the episode had not been released, and review-bombed Dota 2, believing that Valve's backing of the game led them to drop work on the Half-Life series. That same month, Steam users review bombed Sonic Mania in protest of its use of Denuvo DRM, which was not disclosed by Sega on the game's store page on launch day. Sega responded by claiming the 'offline play bug' had been patched, and a Denuvo warning was added to the game's Steam page.
Firewatch was review-bombed on Steam in September 2017 after its developer Campo Santo responded to an incident where the YouTuber PewDiePie uttered a racial slur during an unrelated livestream by issuing a false DMCA takedown against PewDiePie's videos of their game. Campo Santo justified this by stating that they did not want someone with PewDiePie's ideology to be associated with their game. A large number of users issued negative reviews of Firewatch, claiming that Campo Santo were "social justice warriors" or were supporting "censorship". The head of Campo Santo, Sean Vanaman, later expressed "regret" over issuing the takedown notice.
In October 2017, PlayerUnknown's Battlegrounds was review bombed, primarily by Chinese players, after an advert for a VPN service was shown in game. As the internet in China is highly regulated, VPN servers have been used by some players to bypass Chinese regulations and play on servers in other regions. The promotion of such VPN products was poorly received because players believed developer Bluehole should introduce servers local to the region instead of encouraging Chinese players to pay for VPNs. The review bomb may also be tied to the fact that the product, which is not free-to-play, included advertising support, which has yet to occur for the game in any other region worldwide. Kerbal Space Program was similarly review bombed by Chinese players after the developers Squad changed a line of Chinese text on one of the game's assets inspired by a quotation from Chairman Mao Zedong. Due to variations of interpretation of the Chinese saying, this line was perceived as sexist by some players. The replacement line lacked such confusion but also distorted the original meaning, leading those upset with the change to respond with negative reviews.
Star Wars: Battlefront II was review-bombed on Metacritic upon its launch in November 2017 in response to the design of the game's microtransactions and loot boxes. Many saw the game as being pay-to-win during its pre-release beta trials as the unlocking of new content and characters significantly favoured those who paid for them with real money. In response to the backlash, Electronic Arts altered the progression and economic system to make it fairer to players, and the day before release, disabled the microtransactions entirely, stating that they would be re-introduced at a later date. In March 2018, developer DICE announced an overhaul for the system, stating that all content would be purely cosmetic, will not affect gameplay, and would only be purchasable through in-game currency. The changes were released across March and April 2018.
The Creative Assembly's Total War: Rome II, initially released in 2013, had been patched in early 2018 to add female characters, with a random chance for some of them to be generals. When an image circulated of the game showing one player's armies all led by female generals, users on Steam complained about the historical accuracy. A female community content manager stated Creative Assembly's stance: that the game was meant to be "historically authentic, not historically accurate", but a portion of these users began to review bomb the title on Steam, believing that the content manager was pushing a personal agenda. Player-created mods that allowed players to control the probability of women generals appearing became popular on Steam.
The launch of the Epic Games Store—a competing storefront to Steam—in December 2018 has been the focal point of a number of review bombs, as Epic has secured time-limited exclusive sales for new games in series that have traditionally been on Steam, with those leaving reviews on the older games on Steam upset at this exclusivity. This includes Metro Exodus, the third game in the Metro series, and Borderlands 3 from the Borderlands series. As the Epic Games Store interface has purposely omitted user reviews, these users have turned to the review pages on Steam for related products (such as Borderlands 2) to review-bomb the game.
Devotion by Taiwanese studio Red Candle Games was review-bombed by Chinese players after they discovered an in-game poster that referenced the meme of Chinese Communist Party general secretary Xi Jinping censoring the character Winnie the Pooh. While Red Candle stated the poster was not meant to be in the final game and took it out on the next immediate patch, the game still received negative user reviews, forcing Red Candle to terminate their publishing deals and pull the game from distribution.
Nintendo's Fire Emblem: Three Houses and Astral Chain were both review-bombed on Metacritic shortly after their launches in July and August respectively for being exclusive to the Nintendo Switch, presumably by users of other platforms who were not aware that the critically acclaimed titles were owned by Nintendo. These reviews were removed by Metacritic in early September, restoring the games' user scores to their original "generally favorable" and "universal acclaim" scores of 8.7 and 9.0 respectively.
Gears 5 was review-bombed on Steam primarily by players from China after the game was pulled from sale in that region by its developer, The Coalition. While the reason for the game's removal was not officially stated, it may have been pulled by order of the Chinese government due to the inclusion of LGBT+ Pride flags that players can use as decals.
Call of Duty: Modern Warfare was review bombed on Metacritic in October 2019 by users who were angered at the American-developed game's depiction of the Russian military. In particular, the campaign's portrayal of an area attacked by Russian forces dubbed "the highway of death" drew outrage from its apparent similarities to the real-life Highway of Death that suffered devastation as a result of an attack led by American forces during the Gulf War.
Death Stranding was review bombed on Metacritic upon its launch in November 2019, receiving over 15,000 user reviews half a month after release and bringing the overall user score to around 5.5/10. Publications noted that the user score bombings were both positive and negative, although they found there were more of the latter. The review bombing was deduced to have stemmed from players who were disappointed with the game, which had been widely anticipated but released to "divisive" reviews by critics, as well as PlayStation users who were upset that the game would be ported to personal computers a year later in 2020. In early December 2019, Metacritic removed many user reviews categorized as negative, increasing the user score.
Pokémon Sword and Shield was review-bombed on Metacritic upon release in November 2019, following complaints from fans about the exclusion of Pokémon from previous games in the series, as well as quality concerns brought about by apparent evidence that Game Freak had lied about some aspects of the game's development. The bombing brought the user scores for Sword and Shield down to 4.6 and 4.4 respectively both indicating "generally unfavorable" reviews.
2020s Warcraft III: Reforged, a remaster of 2002's Warcraft III: Reign of Chaos, was review-bombed on Metacritic upon release in January 2020, reaching a low score of 0.5, indicating "overwhelming dislike", several days later based on over 14,000 reviews, making it the lowest-ranked game on the site by user score. The game itself received mixed reviews from critics with an aggregate score of 60 out of 100, as of February 2020. These reviews cited the poor quality of the remaster, lacking some of the features that Blizzard had previously said would be in the game, such as improved cutscenes and user interface, and that it felt like a half-finished product. However, the review bomb was focused on additional issues beyond the game's quality. The game was released as a mandatory update to the original Warcraft III: Reign of Chaos due to it using Reforgeds client, which prevented players from reverting to play the original Warcraft III, even if they had not purchased the remastered version. Additionally, those players criticized the terms of use policy that gave Blizzard ownership over all user-authored works made in the remaster.