VRChat: characters appear 3.6 times as often in negative Japanese reviews
Japanese-language reviewers cite characters far more often when they do not recommend VRChat. This analysis covers 3,519 Japanese and 3,461 English reviews collected between 2017-02-02 and 2026-11-10.
Own research by 648 News. Every figure in this article was counted by us from 3,519 Steam reviews written in Japanese and 3,461 written in English, collected between 2017-02-02 and 2026-11-10.
Japanese recommendation rates match Steam totals
The sample covers 3,519 Japanese-language reviews. 81.8% of these recommend the game, with a confidence interval ranging from 80.5% to 83.1%. Steam reports 3,506 total Japanese reviews with an 81.8% positive rate as of November 11, 2026. The English sample contains 3,461 reviews, and 33.9% of them recommend VRChat. The English confidence interval spans from 32.4% to 35.5%. Steam lists 182,385 total English reviews at a 69.2% positive rate. The difference between the two language groups stands at 47.9 percentage points.
The numbers
Performance and story appear less often than usual
Japanese reviewers discuss performance just 0.2 times as often as the typical title. They mention it in 3.6% of classified reviews. Story and writing appear in 3.9% of reviews, compared with a 10.5% baseline for other games. Players writing in Japanese note that the core experience runs smoothly and rarely crashes. They also observe that the game lacks a traditional narrative, focusing instead on player-driven interactions. Gameplay and combat fill 27.7% of the classified reviews. Amount of content and replayability appear in 18.2% of reviews. Graphics and art direction appear in 7.3% of reviews. Characters and character design fill 10.7% of reviews. The median playtime reaches 466.6 hours. The least played quarter covers up to 55.7 hours and recommends the game at 77.6%. The most played quarter starts at 2108.1 hours and recommends it at 82.3%. The difference in recommendation rates between these groups is 4.7 percentage points. The p-value text is p = 0.015.
Characters drive the complaints
Characters and character design fill 15.6% of the reviews that do not recommend VRChat. This topic appears 3.6 times as often in negative feedback than in reviews for similar games. Players writing in Japanese point out that the community contains a high volume of emotionally unstable users. They also mention that many visitors struggle with social cues or form intense attachments. Online play and servers appear in 8.1% of classified reviews. Performance problems fill 3.6% of reviews. Players note that the game generally avoids major bugs, though some report occasional crashes.
精神的に未熟な人間が多すぎ
Too many emotionally immature people.
English reviewers focus on developer conduct
English-language reviews recommend the game 47.9 percentage points less often than Japanese ones. Players writing in English focus heavily on developer conduct, which appears in 17.5% of classified reviews. They also discuss gameplay in 12.4% of reviews and online servers in 10.2%. Story appears in 10.2% of English reviews. Japanese reviewers prioritize gameplay at 27.7% and content length at 18.2%. The two groups of reviewers differ in both their overall recommendation rates and their primary topics. English reviewers frequently criticize update policies and AI labeling decisions. Monetization appears in 1.3% of English reviews. Japanese reviewers mention price in 3.2% of reviews. UI and controls account for 1.5% of Japanese reviews and 0.4% of English reviews. Music and sound appear in 0.4% of Japanese reviews. English reviewers mention performance in 4.0% of reviews. The English sample collected reviews from 2020-04-16 through 2026-11-10.
VRChatは作ることが好きな人にはうってつけの場所です
It is the perfect place for people who like to create.
Methodology and sources
Data
Steam user reviews, retrieved with Steam's public review listing between 2017-02-02 and 2026-11-10: 3,519 written in Japanese and 3,461 written in English. Steam's own all-time totals for VRChat were read on 2026-11-11.
How the reviews were classified
Every review was read by a language model, which rated how positive it is, how much concrete detail it gives, and which of 15 fixed topics it talks about. The counts and percentages in this article were then computed from those labels in ordinary code, not by the model. Automatic classification makes mistakes, so single percentages should be read as approximate. Reviews of fewer than 15 characters were not sent to the model; they count as positive or negative from the reviewer's own recommendation and carry no topic.
Limits
People who write a Steam review in Japanese are not a representative sample of everyone who plays in Japan, and the language of a review does not establish where its author lives. Steam's default filter for off-topic review activity was left on, so periods Steam marked as review bombing are excluded from the counts in this article. Reviews that arrived after the retrieval date are not included.
Links
Data from Steam. Steam and the Steam logo are trademarks and/or registered trademarks of Valve Corporation.