Summary
- Diablo 4's review score on Steam may have been manipulated by unknown parties through the use of bot accounts, as discovered by a Reddit user.
- The suspicious bot accounts left behind positive ratings for Diablo 4, with the reviews containing "-blizzard" and impossibly high playtime in the past two weeks.
- These bot accounts might be attempting to establish a legitimate image for future score manipulation and are primarily focused on free-to-play titles such as Overwatch 2.
While Steam reviews for Blizzard titles haven't exactly been positive, one Diablo 4 player discovered strong evidence that its review score may have been manipulated by an unknown party. Diablo 4 has been the subject of review-bombing since launch, as it didn't take long for players to become frustrated with the game. This frustration continued to simmer in the community unabated, arguably reaching its peak with the debut of Patch 1.1, just a few days prior to the launch of Season of the Malignant.
By contrast, Diablo 4's Season of Blood represented a course-correction for the game, implementing a laundry list of changes that players had been demanding since the open beta. However, the damage had already been done, and Diablo 4's reputation sunk deep enough that it endured another bout of review-bombing as soon as it launched on Steam. Though it could be argued that many of these reviews likely came from temporary purchases who refunded the game after leaving a negative rating on Diablo 4's Steam page, it would appear that score manipulation in the other direction has also been developing in the background.
Diablo 4 is Being Review Bombed on Steam
Players voice their discontent as Diablo 4 makes its debut on Steam, sparking a surge of negative reviews flooding the platform.
Thanks to some detective work by Nodlimax on Reddit, this Diablo 4 player uncovered an array of what appear to be Steam bot accounts, all leaving behind positive ratings of Diablo 4 in a suspiciously uniform way. The reviews all have "-blizzard" written on them, and most curiously, the accounts themselves have playtime in the past two weeks that far exceed the amount of hours in a period of 14 days. Though the situation is perplexing at first glance, there are a few factors to consider.
These positive ratings come from Steam Key reviews, meaning that Diablo 4 was either gifted to the account in question or redeemed through a CD key. Furthermore, the Steam Awards are currently ongoing, where player accounts can be awarded a badge for nominating games in every category, and then they can upgrade that badge by writing a review. A likely possibility is that these bot accounts are using Diablo 4 to establish an image of being a "legitimate" account that could then be used for score manipulation in the future, as the games on their account are primarily free-to-play titles such as Overwatch 2.
Diablo 4 currently has mixed reviews on Steam, with 65% of them being positive. Given how much Season of Blood has attempted to fix the game's major shortcomings (such as the leveling grind and lack of endgame variety), a decent number of Diablo fans would begrudgingly agree that it's a fairly accurate score for the latest Blizzard title. With Greater Rifts coming back to Diablo as the Abattoir of Zir pinnacle dungeon, and with the mysterious Season 3 on the way, the developers have a clear path ahead to turn Diablo 4 around. After all, Diablo 3's Reaper of Souls expansion has already proven that it can be done.
Diablo 4
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OpenCritic Reviews
- Top Critic Avg: 88 /100 Critics Rec: 93%
WHERE TO PLAY
- Franchise
- Diablo
- Platform(s)
- PlayStation 5, PlayStation 4, Xbox Series X, Xbox Series S, Xbox One, PC
- Genre(s)
- Action RPG, Hack and Slash
