Horizon: Forbidden West’s DLC is getting review bombed
The expansion-sized DLC for Horizon: Forbidden West (known as ‘Burning Shores’) is receiving a flurry of 0/10 and largely negative reviews from users. While there are some that have legitimate criticisms and issues with the content on offer, one aspect is persistent when you scroll through the hundreds of reviews. This is the fact that the main character, Alloy, is confirmed as lesbian or bisexual partly through the campaign of the DLC. The reason I haven’t marked this as a spoiler is that this isn’t exactly news when it comes to the Horizon series.
Since the first game, I thought it was quite clear from some of the dialogue options that you could have Alloy flirt with whichever gender you’d like. Somehow, however, it appears that this aspect (which was even in the base game of Horizon: Forbidden West) has been lost on so many ‘fans’ of the series until this point. While it’s important to note that a substantial portion of the reviews does have genuine issues with the DLC including a lack of content and plot direction, there is still an overwhelming amount of bizarre individuals voicing their disdain for Guerilla Games’ ‘political woke agenda’.
From looking at the disparity between critic and user scores, it becomes quite clear that a lot of the user reviews lack any real weight. A review from user GSh773 on metacritic expresses the following:
“Visually look awesome, but what about storytelling? Aloy lesbian! What are you doing Sony & Guerilla really? Stop doing it with your characters. That’s awful plot, you create a wonderful world, and absolutely awful minor characters.”
A similar sentiment was shared by Rafadsp, who had the following incredible insight in their 0/10 review on the expansion:
“They put on a lesbian dating just to please the woke culture. Aloy never showed signs of being a lesbian. Thanks, because because of that I didn't buy the DLC and saved my money. For me, the franchise died.”
Needless to say, it’s probably better to listen to the critics on this one- who would have far less of a reason to give such low review scores. It’s truly remarkable how this sect of the gaming community continues to exist in 2023. The best thing to do in this case would be to ignore all of the bizarre 0/10 scores and make your own informed decision on whether to buy the expansion. Although there may be some genuine flaws, if you enjoyed the base game, Guerilla’s DLC is likely a safe buy for a relatively low price of £15.99.
