Valve silences Borderlands review bombers with 'off-topic' fix

Valve has used its new "off-topic" review bombing countermeasure for the first time to disregard the swathe of negative Borderlands users reviews left on Steam.

Last week, those dismayed by 2K's decision to make Borderlands 3 a six-month Epic Games Store exclusive began posting negative user reviews of past Borderlands games on Steam, leaving Borderlands, Borderlands 2, and The Pre-Sequel with recent ratings of "mixed" or "mostly negative."

It was the first real test for Valve since it pledged to curb Steam review bombing by implementing a new "off-topic" review system that would identify and disregard disingenuous feedback, helping preserve the original scores of affected games. 

Valve has now marked user reviews for all three games posted between April 3 and April 8 as off-topic for being "largely unrelated to the likelihood that you would enjoy the product."

Although users can still see those off-topic reviews if they go digging, they'll no longer affect each title's overall and recent ratings.

You can see the system in action by checking out the graphs below. The first shows Borderlands: The Pre-Sequel's user rating as of April 4 (before the off-topic fix was implemented), and the second is how it looks today post-fix.