AI-Generated Review by Fake Author Briefly Infiltrates Metacritic for Resident Evil Requiem

An AI-generated Resident Evil Requiem review briefly made it on Metacritic

While it's unfortunately difficult to confirm with 100 percent accuracy whether a piece of text is AI-generated, you don't have to read VideoGamer's review for long to notice all the ways it feels off. The biggest giveaway, beyond heavy use of contrived metaphors, is a striking lack of detail beyond what you could glean from a trailer for the game. Embargoes covering what parts of a video game can come up in a pre-release review can be strict, but a good critic usually finds a way to describe their experience without being vague. VideoGamer's review, written by one "Brian Merrygold," really doesn't. As at least one user on X has pointed out, it's worth' being suspicious of Merrygold, too. The author's profile on VideoGamer is just as awkwardly written as the review, and the profile picture of the account appears to be AI-generated. When you try to save the image locally, its file name, "ChatGPT-Image-Oct-20-2025-11_57_34-AM-300x300," also seems like a dead giveaway. Kotaku looked at the X accounts of several other recent bylines at VideoGamer and found similar results. All their profile pictures appear to be AI-generated, and all the accounts were created around the same time in October 2025. Metacritic relies on reviews written by real publications to create a score representing the overall critical sentiment towards a game or movie, not unlike Rotten Tomatoes. While there's disagreement whether it's a good thing that a popular site strips out the nuance of written reviews to make a number people can argue over, everyone can probably agree that Metacritic incorporating fake, AI-generated reviews is a bad idea. In response to the discovery that VideoGamer's review is likely AI-generated, Metacritic has removed it from its Resident Evil Requiem page. "The RE Requiem review and a handful of other VideoGamer reviews from 2026 have been removed from Metacritic," Marc Doyle, Metacritic's co-founder, told Kotaku. A news site publishing an AI-written review is just as dire as Metacritic aggregating it, and that appears to be what VideoGamer is doing. ClickOut Media, the company that owns VideoGamer and a collection of other publications, reportedly laid off the staff of its gaming sites earlier this month to pivot to AI-generated content. Sifting through AI slop, whether on social media or Pinterest, is increasingly necessary online. Now apparently Metacritic is another place where readers should have their guard up.

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

The site responsible laid off its real editorial staff only weeks ago. 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."

Metacritic Removes Resident Evil 9 Review From Fake AI Writer

Videogamer, purchased by casino gambling SEO span company BGFG a few years back, gave Resident Evil Requiem a 9/10 in its review this week. But readers pointed out that the writing “reeks [of] AI," and its author, "experienced iGaming and sports betting analyst" Brian Merrygold, appeared to be a made-up person complete with an AI profile image. The review in question, which is full clichés and generalities rather than specifics about the game and how it plays, was previously scraped and featured on Metacritic for its review score roundup on launch day. It raises concerns about quality controls for the main video game review aggregator that fans consult before buying games and companies mention in their quarterly earnings reports when touting the success of recent releases. As spotted by Gfinity’s Andrés Aquino in a post on X, everything about Brian Merrygold’s profile on Videogamer comes off as suspicious. The byline appears to have no prior online history and the profile image url is tiled “ChatGPT-Image-Oct-20-2025-11_57_34-AM-300×300.png.†Several other authors on the site have similarly suspicious-looking AI-generated profile pictures that don’t mention they were generated by “ChatGPT†in their file names, suggesting this may have been a slip-up on by Videogamer site management as it pivots the outlet to completely AI-generated junk. Other current bylines on the site include Shooter Orson and Steven Danielson. Like the Merrygold account, all three had their X profiles created in October 2025. Sources told Kotaku that BGFG began publishing AI-generated content under the casino and gambling portions of Videogamer around that time last fall, but it wasn't until the staff was axed last week that AI content started being pushed out into the gaming news, reviews, and features sections as well. While it's impossible to verify what content is or isn't generated with AI with complete accuracy, multiple AI-checkers Kotaku used to verify the legitimacy the Resident Evil Requiem review sounded alarm bells. It wasn't the only recent review to get picked up by Metacritic either. A Recent Pokémon FireRed and LeafGreen review, which was published on Videogamer and subsequently featured on Metacritic on February 23, has also been removed from the aggregator's roundup. The CEO of BGFG did not immediately respond to a request for comment.