Hi Fi Rush is Being Reverse Review Bombed

In the wake of the news that Microsoft would be closing several studios (including Arkane Austin and Tango GameWorks most predominantly), players have flocked to Steam to leave positive reviews as a protest against this decision. The game that has felt this the most is Tango Gameworks’ latest game- and arguably its best.

Rhythm action platformer Hi Fi Rush was a hit amongst fans and critics when it was shadow dropped at the beginning of last year. Although it was already sitting at an incredible 96% positive rating on Steam, since the studio was announced to be shutting down, this has jumped to an almost perfect 98%- with the majority of reviews calling out why a team was being let go after making one of the most innovative and well received games of the year.  

What makes this even stranger is how Microsoft have acted in the days after the announcement. Since the decision to shut down the smaller studios in favour of pooling resources towards their bigger releases, an Xbox executive stressed the importance of smaller scale games that win awards. Ironically, the much smaller in scale Hi-Fi Rush won a Game Developer’s Choice, BAFTA and even managed to snag best audio design at 2023’s competitive Game Awards.

Image by Tango Gameworks

Compared to Xbox’s big 2023 release ‘Starfield’ (which only actually won one award at the Golden Joystick’s for best Xbox game), this seems to be exactly what Microsoft  executives are looking for. Unfortunately, this doesn’t seem to be the case as, instead, fantastic promising studios have been shut down to make way for safer, bigger releases- even if they turn out to be worse. This situation appears to be best put by one Steam reviewer, QuantumRads, who said the following in their recent positive review for Hi Fi Rush:

Despite claims to the contrary by Xbox higher ups, simply making a good game isn’t enough anymore. Even if you put out consistently fantastic work, you’re always at risk of losing your job due to highly questionable decisions from publishers. The recent studio closures at Bethesda point to that. Both Arkane Austin and Tango Gameworks were shut down despite one making one of the worst performing, most disappointing games of the year and the other making a critical darling that won itself a heap of praise. Given how the years gone so far, unfortunately, we’re prone to see even more poor decisions that see developers out of jobs and franchises put to death all in the name of some dubious corporate strategy.