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The Eurogamer review policy

Review philosophy

Eurogamer reviews tell you whether or not we liked something and why. Our reviews aren't primarily buyer's guides, but they should equip you with enough enlightening information, analysis and context to decide whether you will find something interesting, as well as sparking off further discussion.

Eurogamer reviewers are a diverse group and the site has been running since 1999, so inevitably our preferences have evolved over the years, but there are a few things we could probably be said to favour. We enjoy coherent storytelling, inventive mechanics, imaginative settings and high-quality engineering in games, although these things need not always coexist in the same game for us to enjoy it.

Review process

We expect our writers to spend enough time with the subject of a review to understand it intimately before assembling their thoughts, but this is not an exact science and we work with our reviewers to make sensible judgements about what is appropriate.

Wherever possible, we review finished products in our offices and/or homes to ensure that our experience is the same as anyone else's. If this is not possible, we may delay a review, or we may decide to proceed anyway and explain the circumstances to the reader. (If a review involves travel, we avoid glitzy VIP events and pay our own way in accordance with our ethics policy.)

Review scores

Eurogamer marks games out of ten. The score is intended to complement the text of a review rather than being considered in isolation, but it also provides a general indication of a game's quality, where 1/10 is the worst possible mark and 10/10 is the best. Individual reviewers set the scores, but these are often discussed and debated with commissioning editors before publication in order to achieve consistency.

On some occasions, games do not receive a review score. 'Launch reviews' subject online-only games to the same level of scrutiny as any other Eurogamer review, but withhold final judgement until we have been able to play a game on live servers, after which we may tweak and certify the original review and polish it off with a score, or if the differences are substantial we may re-review a game to reflect the full context.

In the case of online games we cannot play before release, or for online games where we can easily predict that the live experience will be significantly different to pre-release access, we may simply delay a review outright. This most typically applies to MMOs, which we usually give ourselves around a fortnight to review post-launch.

We also withhold scores from games in Early Access, alpha and beta phases for similar reasons. Our critical process is the same as it would be for any other game being sold to the public, but we withhold a score in recognition of the fact the game is a work in progress. Once a game is finalised, we publish a traditional review with a score. (For more information on this distinction, read the Editor's blog on the subject.) For similar reasons, we withhold scores from reviews of the initial episodes of episodic game series, and then publish a review with score of the entire season once it's complete.

Eurogamer also reviews all sorts of other things, like hardware, books, films and board games, but we only apply scores to games.

Frequently Asked Questions

How do you choose which games to review?
Eurogamer selects games for review on the basis of what interests us - whether that's in terms of quality, profile or your anticipation.

Do you ever change scores after publication?
No. If we believe a game has changed significantly over time, then we may re-review a game at a later date, in which case we will link to the new review from the old one for clarity.

I'm a game developer! How do I get you to review my game?
You can contact the editor through our exciting contact form! We can't guarantee we will review something, but we consider all submissions.

Last updated: 1st May 2014