Metacritic drops VideoGamer’s AI slop review of Resident Evil Requiem

The review score aggregator briefly included a game review clearly written by AI.

Metacritic drops VideoGamer’s AI slop review of Resident Evil Requiem

Review aggregator Metacritic removed a review of Resident Evil Requiem from its site today after users determined that it was clearly written by AI. The “review,” published by British gaming site VideoGamer, is credited to a writer named “Brian Merrygold,” whose words and author photo bear telltale signs of artificial intelligence. The review’s score, a 9 out of 10, was indexed by Metacritic alongside over 100 others, which presumably were actually written by human beings. (We can confirm that our review was written by a real guy, with blood and fingers and everything.)

After removing the review, Metacritic released the following statement to the press:

Our policy is that we will never include an AI-generated review on Metacritic, and that if we subsequently discover that one has been posted we will remove it immediately and sever ties with that publication upon an investigation

Founded in 2004, VideoGamer was a legitimate outlet for many years, staffed by actual people with actual opinions, and Metacritic has long included its reviews in their aggregation. The outlet has changed ownership several times; in 2025 it was acquired by Clickout Media, a company that bought several gaming sites and loaded them up with advertorial for the kind of gaming regulated by gaming commissions—that is, gambling and casinos. Last week VideoGamer was one of many sites owned by Clickout that conducted layoffs, with reports that they would be using AI for content going forward. It’s now evident that this AI-generated content will include reviews, which Metacritic, per its longstanding aggregation of VideoGamer, scraped for Resident Evil Requiem. Metacritic cofounder Marc Doyle told Kotaku that “a handful of other VideoGamer reviews from 2026” have also been removed from their aggregation over AI concerns. Doyle didn’t immediately respond to The A.V. Club about what changes Metacritic might implement to prevent similar issues in the future.

 
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