About the site
Review policy
How a game gets a badge, what we disclose, and what we don't do.
Badges, not scores
Every review carries one of four badges instead of a numbered score:
| Badge | What it means |
|---|---|
| Editor's Choice | Among the best the genre has to offer right now. An easy recommendation. |
| Recommended | Genuinely good, with real strengths that outweigh its rough edges. |
| Worth Playing | Solid for the right player, with real caveats worth knowing before you buy. |
| Skip It | Not a recommendation, for reasons the review explains. |
A badge is a verdict, not a summary — the review underneath it is where the actual argument lives. If you only read the badge, you're missing the point of the piece.
How reviews are sourced
We do not claim first-hand playthroughs we haven't done. With a three-person desk covering a genre this large, that would mean either reviewing far fewer games or being dishonest about how the rest were covered — we chose the first, and then addressed it honestly for everything else: reviews are built from official release materials, technical breakdowns from outlets like Digital Foundry, and the critical and player consensus that forms after a game ships. Every review's "How we reviewed it" section states this directly and names its sources.
Where we cite a Metacritic or OpenCritic figure, a launch price, a release date or a technical claim, we verify it against public sources before publishing rather than estimating. If we can't verify something, we say so or leave it out — we don't publish a plausible-sounding guess as fact.
Review copies and access
We accept review codes from publishers when they're offered. Accepting a code has no bearing on a game's badge, and we don't accept payment, sponsorship or any other consideration in exchange for coverage. If a specific piece was written using a provided code or early access build, that's noted in the piece.
Corrections
Published reviews and rankings get things wrong sometimes — a patch changes a game, a fact we cited turns out to be inaccurate, or a critical consensus shifts. When that happens we correct the piece and note that a correction was made, rather than silently editing it. If you've spotted an error, our contact page is the fastest way to reach us.
How rankings work
Our standing rankings are re-argued periodically rather than fixed at publication. Placement weighs how much a game reacts to the player, how well its systems have held up since launch, and how it plays today rather than at launch — ports and revisions are judged as the version you can currently buy, not the version that originally shipped.