An AI-generated review of Resident Evil Requiem written by a fake 'iGaming and sports betting analyst' briefly hit Metacritic

A review of Resident Evil Requiem has been pulled from Metacritic after humans noticed it was AI-generated. UK-based site Videogamer.com published the review by author Brian Merrygold, who doesn't seem to exist, and whose Videogamer profile picture carries the filename ChatGPT-Image-Oct-20-2025-11_57_34-AM-148x148.png. He is nevertheless described as "an experienced iGaming and sports betting analyst with a deep appreciation for the innovation shaping modern gambling entertainment."

That's relevant because since August 2025 Videogamer has been owned by Clickout Media, who earlier this month laid off the site's editorial staff in a reported pivot to AI content. Videogamer is nowadays "all about video and casino games", with articles like "Best Crypto Casinos in Malaysia for 2026" and a whole section dedicated to betting.

Videogamer's AI-generated review gave Resident Evil Requiem 9/10, describing it as "the gory, glorious finale the fans deserved". It briefly featured on Metacritic alongside reviews written by real people—including our own Elie Gould—raising questions about the integrity of aggregators in an age of AI churn.

Metacritic wields enormous power in the industry: executives like Take-Two's Strauss Zelnick and former EA boss Peter Moore have both drawn correlations between Metacritic scores and sales figures. Obsidian developers famously missed out on bonuses because Fallout: New Vegas didn't achieve a high enough Metacritic score.

"Metacritic has been a reputable review source for a quarter century and has maintained a rigorous vetting process when adding new publications to our slate of critics," Metacritic's Marc Doyle said in a statement provided to PC Gamer. "However, in certain instances such as a publication being sold or a writing staff having turned over, problems can arise such as plagiarism, theft, or other forms of fraud including AI-generated reviews.

"Metacritic’s policy is to never include an AI-generated critic review on Metacritic and if we discover that one has been posted, we’ll remove it immediately and sever ties with that publication indefinitely pending a thorough investigation."

According to Kotaku, several other recent Videogamer reviews have also been removed from Metacritic.

Aside from the material effects it has on the industry, Metacritic's primacy also has a flattening effect, amplifying consensus and disadvantaging polarising games. Warren Spector put it best in 2013: "Metacritic, at best, rewards games that are conventional and well understood by players and critics alike. New and challenging things are, by their very nature, disruptive and easily misunderstood. Aggregation of opinion, at best, offers hope and guidance to people whose goal is to maximize profitability but little to people whose priorities lie elsewhere.”