Microsoft is allegedly removing negative reviews of its Xbox exclusive racing game Forza Motorsport from the Microsoft Store. Seen across PC and Xbox consoles, fans are reporting the loss of their reviews for Turn 10’s latest racer, but are real reviews actually being censored?
Compared to PlayStation’s PS5 exclusive Gran Turismo, we found in our review of the latest Forza Motorsport that Turn 10’s newest entry was a tad weak. While not a bad game, the newest racer lacks some much needed identity.
This has been a sentiment shared by the series’ biggest fans, leading to many negative or middling reviews across multiple platforms. While not a bad game, fans have expressed disappointment after years of hype.
Via Exputer, multiple users are reporting that their reviews of Forza Motorsport are being taken down from Microsoft’s platform. While the Microsoft Store does take down reviews that feature hate speech — although not often enough — it shouldn’t be removing negative criticism.
At one point, the Microsoft Store page for Forza Motorsport: Standard Edition has 857 reviews resulting in a score of 2.6/5 stars. However, that page now has just over reviews, but the score is even lower at 2.5/5 stars. This likely means that Microsoft isn’t actually censoring negative reviews, but axing those with horrific language.
Forza Motorsport’s Microsoft Store page is still riddled with negative reviews for the racing game. Many of the reviews call out the game’s downgraded graphics since release, a lack of polish, poor optimisation and some underbaked features.
In smaller quantities, Forza user reviews also criticise the game’s overhauled handling mechanics as well as the series’ still unsatisfactory racing wheel support. While there is a hope that some of these issues will improve over time, others are long criticisms of the racing simulator.
However, it does seem that Microsoft isn’t simply removing negative reviews for Forza Motorsport. Even if the company was doing so, it has spectacularly failed, giving the game a lower overall rating than it had before.
Forza Motorsport is available right now on Xbox Series consoles and PC via the Microsoft Store and Steam. The game is also available on Xbox Game Pass and Xbox Cloud Gaming on Xbox One, PC, mobile and SmartTVs.