Den of Geek

Review Embargoes: What are They, and Do They Help?

You may have read about review embargoes on big movies. But what are they, and how do they actually work?

what is a review embargo

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This article comes from Den of Geek UK .

If you’re social media inclined, then you may see ahead of the release of big movies a conversation going on as to when the “review embargo” is going to lift. Furthermore, the timing of a review embargo then has a habit of being translated into an audit of how confident a studio is in a particular production.

But built into this is an inherent assumption about what embargoes are, and what they’re for. Appreciating, therefore, that many of you will know lots of this already, I did think it was worth mapping out the ins and outs of the embargo, and just who it’s for. Because it’s one of those things where one size doesn’t really fit all.

A review embargo is, at heart, what you likely to suspect it to be. In return for seeing a film early, so that you can assemble your thoughts and get your review and features ready in time, you have to sign a piece of paper promising not to run your coverage until an agreed date and time.

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This is generally something that helps both the reviewer and the film company. Around the release of the last James Bond film, Spectre , there was no embargo in place after the first press screening. It took place in Leicester Square, and immediately after the film finishing, you could see film reviewers bashing out their words on a laptop on benches. There’s still a traffic benefit in being the first review out there, and in the case of Spectre , the film finished around an hour before national press reviewers had to file their copy for the morning papers.

Spectre was finished late, hence the late press screening. But I’d still suggest that such an approach helps nobody. Few people can consider, digest, and pen their best reaction to a film in a hour. Readers, thus, will get more knee-jerk than considered reactions. The studio is gambling that all this works in its favor, of course, but also, the vast majority of film publicists would rather start screening a film earlier.

Embargoes aren’t unique to film. They work increasingly across technology, videogames, cars, theatre, and more. In the case of videogames, more and more outlets have given up trying to get a review together in time for an embargo lifting, as the physical impossibility of playing through a game in the short window they’re afforded makes it a waste of time.

What does an embargo look like?

Sometimes it’s a form that requires you to pop in your name and the outlet you work for. For very early screenings, we’ve had to supply an embargo countersigned by two people, but generally, the norm is you put your own name and sign it on the spot. These forms are commonplace.

What happens if you break the embargo?

The straightforward answer is that the film company is likely to deny you early access to things in the future, knowing that you can’t be trusted. The less simple answer is it depends who you are. If you’re a massive outlet, and you break things early, then there’s pushback, but you’re unlikely to be on the shitlist for long. If you’re representing a smaller blog, the deck is stacked against you, and you’re likely to be blocked.

Are all embargoes created equal?

Firstly, bizarrely, there’s still some distinction between an embargo for print outlets, and those that are online only. If you ever wonder why the website of a newspaper has printed a review that websites haven’t, it tends to be because they’ve got into an earlier, longer-lead screening by nature of print deadlines, and used that to score an early online review too. Don’t blame ‘em. Would do it myself if I could.

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Then there’s the trade press. It rarely happens now, but in past years, the likes of The Hollywood Reporter , Screen International , and Variety – deemed the traditional ‘trade press’ – have been able to work to different embargo times. That gap appears to have been closed, though.

But then there’s the social media embargo, and the full review embargo. I struggle to wrap my head around that. This tends to state that you can put ‘reactions’ but not a full review on social media early. But that you have to hold the full review back to an agreed date.

Or: you can say what you think of the film in a few words, but not in many. It’s a clever trick for film studios to use, as they know they’ll then get two waves of reactions. The initial social media reaction tends to be more positive, with people Tweeting or Facebooking as they leave a screening. If you ever wonder why there’s a disparity between a reviewer’s social media response and their full review, it tends to be time letting things soak in.

Has everyone seen a film by the time an embargo lifts, then?

Nope. Justice League is a good example of this. The main UK press screening actually took place a good 24 hours after the review embargo for the film lifted. The people who were able to see the film ahead of that were involved in the global junket for the movie (the vast majority of the time, if you’re covering a junket, you get an earlier screening of a film), or attending the national press show for generally newspaper reviewers.

Does a late embargo mean a film is bad?

No. But often yes.

Film has changed a lot over the past five or six years in particular, and one by-product of the digital age is that final cuts are being locked down a lot closer to a release date. As such, there are times when publicists have little time to see the film, react to it, plan screenings (often globally), book screening rooms and such like. It can run things to the wire. Given that marketing departments tend to want star ratings for posters, and quotes too, that causes them hassle as well, even before they have to field umpteen phone calls from movie hacks wondering when a certain screening is, and why that person got in to see it and they didn’t.

On the flipside, there’s nothing like a social media explosion erupting at just the right time to help a film, assuming the film in question is good. Wonder Woman  had a review embargo two days before release. The reviews were hugely positive, and not only did they spread like wildfire across the likes of Twitter and Facebook so did conversations about them. Two days later, Wonder Woman was trending worldwide, box office projections were duly revised upwards.

Against that, there’s A Good Day To Die Hard . Fox was in a quandary with this one. It presumably knew how bad the film was, but also wanted to avoid the ‘Fox refuses to press screen new Die Hard movie’ headlines.

As such, the UK press screening took place at 9:30pm the night before the film’s release. The embargo lifted at midnight. The film ran for just over an hour and a half. The first shitty review off the back of that press screening landed slap bang on time. And yet, bizarrely, the strategy sort of worked. For a terrible movie, Die Hard 5 , as nobody calls it, still grossed over $300 million worldwide. Had the review embargo lifted a week earlier, and word of how bad the film was spread? It’s not hard to see that the number – even appreciating in-built affection for Die Hard movies – would have likely been lower.

Do embargoes change?

Yes. It happens a bit. But they only tend to lift earlier, very rarely later.

More often than not now, a global embargo is enforced, that means wherever you are in the world, you’ll still be tied to the same minute as everyone else. But that can quickly change.

When you leave an early screening, oftentimes, there’s an email waiting for you from a publicist asking for a few lines of reaction. This is, as a rule, so a publicity team can get a measure of the response the film in question is likely to get. Occasionally, if you like a film a lot, you then get asked if you can supply a star rating, and perhaps some lines that can be used for publicity. I’ve written about that before.

In the case of, for instance, Blade Runner 2049 – a film split across two studios worldwide – it quickly became apparent that critics adored the film. The response that Sony in the UK was getting was ecstatic, and conversations soon accelerated about getting the word out about the movie early. The embargo was duly moved from a Monday to the preceding Friday. A weekend of five star reviews for the movie followed. Behind the scenes, a lot of writers were scrambling to get their copy filed in time…

Are embargoes just for big movies?

No. But they tend to be of less use to a smaller, independent movie that’s looking for any oxygen of publicity it can get. Marvel, for instance, will set a global embargo and know that on that given day, its film will be the talk of the movie world as a consequence. In the case of 2015’s wonderful Pride , reviews started running a couple of months before. As such, it allowed sites such as this very organ to bang the drum for it as early as possible. Without a massive marketing budget, and against tough competition, it’s the kind of film that needed that kind of support.

Bottom line: are embargoes a good thing?

It depends, but personally I’d suggest we all win more than we lose.

For those who make their living writing about film, then yes. It’s a trade off that doesn’t in any way ask you to compromise what you say or think about a movie, but instead when you get to see it.

Conversely, I’ve seen the accusation from some people that it’s making a pact with the film company, and that everyone should just pay to see a film when it comes out, and not be beholden to a piece of paper. The flipside of that is reviews won’t be available in advance of films coming out, and that tends to be of less service to a reader at the end of it all.

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Personally, what I value about an embargo is the thinking time they usually afford. That it constrains the need to be first, the desire to get 800 words online and a star rating in double quick time. That, used properly, they tend to result in more thought out reviews.

As a method of control, I’m less comfortable, but it’s rarely an actual problem. Still, the embargo for Geostorm , hilariously, lifted at 1pm on its release date – technically, 13 hours after the film was on general release. I had to weigh up whether it was quicker to see an embargoed preview screening and go by that timeslot, or pick the earliest wide release screening on said Friday morning to try and turn a review around. The former won out, as I realized it’d end up with words arriving at roughly the same time. But it still felt a bit odd. 

It’s still a lot better than my previous job, writing the news for a computer magazine. An embargoed press release arrived, that I wasn’t permitted to run until 12.01am on a given day. The revelation? They’d done a survey that said people spill drinks on computer keyboards. That, chums, was what the delete key was invented for.

Simon Brew

Simon Brew | @SimonBrew

Editor, author, writer, broadcaster, Costner fanatic. Now runs Film Stories Magazine.

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Here's How Video Game Embargoes (And Other Restrictions) Work

Cyberpunk 2077.

The recent Cyberpunk 2077 review fiasco has people asking (again) why reviews of big budget games are what they are. Let’s talk about it.

This won’t be the first time I’ve covered the topic here. About eight years ago, halfway through the Obama administration, I wrote about the strings attached to many major video game reviews—the agreements review outlets make with game publishers in order to get copies of games days or weeks before a game comes out. It’s weird and fraught, arguably necessary. Usually, in exchange for an early copy of a game, the reviewer agrees to a date before which they won’t run their review, is asked to not spoil things, and maybe fields a few other requests, reasonable or not.

Examples I shared in 2013 included Microsoft asking reviewers to not mention Halo 4 ’s prologue, Nintendo barring Kid Icarus: Uprising reviewers from mentioning certain weapons and powers, or, in a throwback to 2008, Konami prohibiting Metal Gear Solid 4 reviewers from saying how long the game’s cutscenes were (spoiler: really, really long).

People depend on game reviews to help understand if a new game is worth playing or buying, and the most effective means to provide game reviews is still to somehow get game makers to send copies early. That’s what leads to all of these review agreements and the need, once again, to talk about them. After all, readers deserve honest and open reviews, and part of such an approach should involve making it clear what we can cover in a review—and what we agree not to.

Nearly a decade since I last covered this, some things have changed, some have not, yet much of how this all plays out remains invisible to most people who read game reviews. That alone makes it worth exploring the topic again. There’s also a renewed question about whether these agreements do more harm than good. We agree to many of them at Kotaku , but not all, and have worked through our own ever-evolving process regarding all of this.

The Cyberpunk situation , to reactivate your memories of December 2020, involved publisher and development studio CD Projekt Red providing reviewers with PC copies of its ballyhooed new game a week prior to release. A week isn’t a lot of time, but it’s also pretty standard.

The really bad part was that it only sent download codes for PlayStation 4 and Xbox One review copies barely a day before the game came out and—this is key— after reviews of the PC copy were able to run.

Here’s what we wrote in our day-one impressions , which we intentionally refrained from calling a review due to the various constraints and console blindspots:

Kotaku got the game less than a week before embargo, and only on PC. (CDPR has not sent us code for the console version of the game, though we’ve been asking.)

Those console versions ran so poorly that CDPR later apologized for them , and the people at PlayStation, at least, removed the game from their digital store. CD Projekt also barred reviewers from showing footage they captured from the game, though screenshots were permitted.

To some onlookers, CDPR had gamed the system , and worse, reviewers let them.

CD Projekt’s approach to supplying Cyberpunk review code wasn’t exceptionally unusual. I don’t mean to exonerate it—as it allowed for a pretty bad version of a major game to slip past reviewers—but some perspective here may help, especially to establish a better process for reviews in the future.

The lead time for playing and reviewing the PC copy of Cyberpunk was average. It was tough, mind you. Playing through a game that’s dozens of hours long in a week is a challenge, as few outlets are set up to have reviewers drop everything to play one game. But we’re offered plenty of games with less lead time, and given the production timelines of games, we can’t expect publishers to send developers’ work far in advance of it reaching a shippable state.

For Cyberpunk , the review embargo lifted a few days before the game was out on any platforms. Some publishers do it that way, others won’t let reviews run until the minute the game is out in New Zealand, the first place on the planet where the date changes over to release day.

Review embargoes that only lift on release day inherently block a reviewer’s ability to show anything of the game before the public can buy a copy. In that regard, while Cyberpunk ’s restriction on reviewer-captured video footage was disappointing, the company had at least agreed to let reviewers run screenshots from the PC version and let them run a couple of days before release. That approach is preferable to pre-release review agreements, such as The Last of Us Part II ‘s, that limit visuals to company-provided screenshots.

An official review screenshot for The Last Of Us Part II.

It’s common for companies to not offer every version of a game. Sometimes they’ll ask which platform you want, or that may default to an outlet’s preference. If they’re blocking one version, it can be a red flag that something might be amiss or that marketing wants to focus coverage on a certain version. Sony, for example, happily sent out PS5 copies of last November’s Spider-Man: Miles Morales , but if you wanted PS4 copies, you had to ask. The game ran fine on PS4, but Sony clearly wanted to tie talk of that game with talk of its new console. Ubisoft sent code for every version of Assassin’s Creed Valhalla prior to its launch, except for PS5 code, ensuring that release-day coverage of the game’s next-gen performance would focus on how the game ran on Xbox Series X, the platform where it was marketed as a major launch game.

The refusal to send console code was the most uncommon aspect of the Cyberpunk review process, though we’ve also seen many other instances of publishers holding back review code as they wait for a final pre-release performance patch to land. That’s what appears to have happened with Cyberpunk ’s console code, though the game’s pre-release patch didn’t sufficiently improve the game .

Some game makers simply don’t let reviewers play any version of a game before it’s out. This is an increasingly common approach, especially for games with significant online components, as publishers will say that their game won’t run—or can’t be fairly judged—until its servers are turned on. Because of that, we don’t get Destiny expansions any earlier than the public does. Even this year’s Call of Duty didn’t come early.

CDPR’s approach, paired with a brazen willingness to ship a console version of horrendous technical quality, exposed the pitfalls of these arrangements. While they do help ensure game developers’ work will be fairly critiqued only after it’s ready to be played, such policies are also vehicles of marketing and messaging. They are the means by which reviews of the most highly anticipated game of the year were barely able to mention that, on the platforms most people were going to play it on, it ran terribly.

Why would anyone agree to this stuff?

I can answer most authoritatively for Kotaku , of course. The answer, simply, is time. Time is the big factor, because games, you may have noticed, are very long, and so a fundamental challenge for any outlet—of any reviewer and any editorial team around them—is figuring out how to find the time to play a video game thoroughly enough to have something illuminating or helpful to say about it by the time people want to know whether to try to play it themselves.

Review outlets regularly grapple with the logistical lunacy of trying to review, on deadline, works of art that take 20, 40 or even 80 hours to experience. Reviewing is tough work in any field, but I nevertheless envy the movie reviewer who can start and finish what they’re reviewing in three hours. I’m jealous of the music reviewer who could spend a week listening to an album to just finish it, but probably doesn’t have to. I laugh at the luck of the book reviewer who may need dozens of hours to get to the last page, but who probably doesn’t need to troubleshoot why the pages in chapter eight didn’t turn correctly, nor figure out how to elegantly note in the review that the vowels on pages 59 and 213 sometimes show up as fish, though maybe that’ll be fixed in the next printing.

It simply takes a lot of time to review games, so you always want to get the game as early as possible, even if you can’t review it in time. Game companies and creators know this and take the opportunity to influence whatever you might write, some farmore egregiously than others.

So, here’s what happens: When we want to review a game, we contact a game publisher or indie developer and ask for a download code (companies rarely send discs or cartridges anymore), or sometimes they send it before we’ve asked.

An indie developer will usually reply with a code and maybe the lightest of restrictions: often just the date the review can run. These were the restrictions for the November indie Bugsnax , as provided along with code by the game’s PR agency:

REVIEWS: Video/written reviews and all deep dive coverage for Bugsnax are embargoed until MONDAY NOVEMBER 9TH AT 6AM PACIFIC, 9AM EASTERN *** Bugsnax is a narrative game. Please avoid story spoilers.

We got that code a luxurious 12 days before reviews were permitted, and 15 days before the game came out.

A bigger-budget publisher will often include more restrictions, or at least be more specific. Ubisoft, for example, sent out review code for Assassin’s Creed Valhalla 12 days before when reviews could run, which was also release day, at least in New Zealand. Ubisoft sent along a 31-page reviewer’s guide that included suggestions about what reviewers should check out. It also included a list of 13 spoilers that the company requested reviews not cover, including aspects of the ending and the true nature of specific characters.

Most of the time, these content restrictions involve spoilers that many reviewers wouldn’t get into anyway. If they are too constraining, there’s always the option to play the review copy early but hold the review until after the restrictions are lifted. That’s never later than release day.

Super Mario 3D Land.

In my article eight years ago, I noted the Nintendo restriction on the 3DS game Super Mario 3D Land would have prevented our reviewer from even alluding to the fact that the surprise second half of the game was the best thing about it. We simply delayed running our review until the game was out so we could note that .

Holding a review back can be tough for outlets that rely on a traffic surge when a review embargo lifts. Outlets want to be in those Google searches and review round-ups, though a bigger outlet like Kotaku can afford to sit on a review and still get traffic when it does publish.

Aside from delaying a review, an outlet can just run impressions when a review embargo lifts, signaling to readers that we have thoughts about a game but aren’t ready to assess it in full. Frankly, most launch day reviews these days are similarly incomplete, since so many games change after release.

When we recognized that the Cyberpunk review situation made it nearly impossible for us to run a review we’d be happy with prior to the game’s release, we only ran an “impressions” / “review in progress,” and took our time to write and run an actual, complete review of the game on Christmas Eve, two weeks after the game came out.

Then there’s our review for The Last Of Us Part II , which we were able to run a week prior to release, same as our competitors. We chose to do that. There were lots of strings attached, hence this paragraph in our review :

If you’ve read this far into the review looking for more details about just what this game is about, there’s a catch. Even though many of the game’s plot details were unexpectedly leaked via a hack in late April, a condition of us being able to review the game a week early with a Sony-provided copy is that we can’t spoil certain things. There’s plenty in the game I wouldn’t have spoiled anyway, since it’s full of events that are meant to surprise. And I can say that, having dug into those leaks, there was plenty in the game that surprised and shocked me. But key parts of the game’s story are off-limits here—not just how the game ends, for example, but also how it begins—as are large portions vital to explaining why I felt how I did about it. People who’ve seen the leaks may know some of this—though not all—but for the purposes of this review, there’s a whole lot to talk around.

Our review was able to cover a lot, but restrictions that tight are deeply frustrating. Our experience with that helped inform our decision to hold off on the Cyberpunk review.

A sort of side note: Sometimes the restrictions on a review are as weird as they are miniscule, making the decision on how to handle things more challenging. One that sticks out in my memory, from 2016, is a proviso included from Sony along with a review code for Uncharted 4 . Sony’s PR asked reviewers to not mention who lives, dies, or falls in love—okay, fine?—but, more extraordinarily, requested that reviewers avoid acknowledging, “Whether [sic] exists a supernatural element, or the nature of any supernatural elements that may be in the game.” The twist they were trying to preserve, as best I could discern, was that while previous Uncharted games included supernatural elements that some fans disliked, 4 didn’t have any. And Sony would rather we not get into that. That restriction felt excessive, too heavy-handed in shaping how reviewers discussed the game, and I regret not objecting to it. But I also don’t think it was significant enough to delay the review and deprive our readers of our take on this game for several more days.

The companies we deal with for access to advance copies vary widely in approach, and some deliver that ultimate reviewer’s cliché: a mixed bag. Sony and Nintendo can include some frustrating restrictions (oh, the time Nintendo limited video clips of a new Zelda game to 30 seconds max), but they provide game code very early, which helps our reviewers a lot. Nintendo’s short turnarounds are two weeks, and the company often has code available up to a month in advance. Atlus sends code really early, too.

Ubisoft tends to go light on content restrictions, as does EA, though the latter also make the kind of games that are tougher to spoil.

Take Two is a trip, to put it nicely, because it tends to send the most onerous of review agreements that it swears are just about keeping the contents of a pre-release game from leaking, but its dense document for, say, 2014’s Civilization Beyond Earth , includes the following description of what “confidential information” is constrained by the agreement:

The term “Confidential Information” includes all analyses, compilations, studies or other documents prepared by the Recipient or any of the Recipient’s Representatives which contain or are based upon (in whole or in part) any information which is furnished or made available by 2K or any of its representatives, including, but not limited to, any trade secret, information, prices, technique, algorithm, computer program (source and object codes), game content and features, screen shots, game concepts and storylines, programming techniques, design, drawing, formula or test data, relating to any research project, work in process, future development, engineering, manufacturing, marketing, servicing, financing or personnel matter relating to 2K, its present or future products, sales, suppliers, clients, customers, employees, investors or business, whether in oral, written, graphic or electronic form.

Yikes! By my reading, they’re not just gagging the person with the Civ code from covering the game, they’re gagging them from talking about anything happening at 2K that their reporting might uncover. Another part of the agreement even refers to the information governed by the agreement to be anything the reporter gets “at any time before or after the date hereof.”

2K PR always gets an email from me complaining that their agreements would seem to pertain to a whole lot more than just the review copy of a game, and sometimes we figure out a workaround, as we did in that case.

That 2014 Civilization: Beyond Earth agreement had another unpleasant part: a gag clause on acknowledging the agreement’s existence for five years. Such agreements really should be avoided, as should any that make it needlessly hard to be transparent with readers.

That’s a look behind the scenes. But what do readers want? I believe readers want timely coverage of games. They want reviews from reviewers who aren’t rushing through a game, who’ve had the time they need to experience the work and collect their thoughts, and who can write and speak freely. They want reviews that aren’t all constrained into commenting on and covering the same narrow range of publisher-approved topics.

To be able to do that, we really need to be able to get games in advance, and therefore will remain in this kind of push-and-pull with the game creators who provide access to code. It’s just the nature of it, and, if outlets are transparent, I believe it can still serve readers well.

I do hope readers want a reasonable amount of transparency about this, that they want an approach to reviews that acknowledges what we can and can’t talk about. And I hope that such an approach, long Kotaku ’s goal and one more explicit as I put it into writing here, can contribute to critical coverage of games that respects game creators and players alike, while ensuring reviewers can do their job in a reasonable way.

And, hey, if the people providing games don’t see it that way, outlets can always get games after launch. We hope readers will continue to show up for that coverage with an understanding of why and how it gets to them.

Erik Twice

The games critic to be wrong with

What’s a review embargo?

what is a review embargo

If you have been following game reviews for a while, you might have noticed they all tend to release at the same exact time. Moreover, you might have heard this is due to a “review embargo” that prevents critics from talking about a game before a certain date.

In this article I’ll explain what those review embargos are and how they work.

A review embargo is an agreement by which a publication may not discuss a game before a certain date. For example, a critic might agree not to publish a review before the day of release or before a big announcement at E3, Essen or Gamescom.

Review embargoes are used for two reasons. The first is to ensure critics have enough time to play the game and share their thoughts on them without the pressure of racing to be the first. After all, reviews are good publicity for a game and having reviewers rush to be the first in the market will make them all worse.

The second is so publishers can send review copies without fears of their game being spoiled or leaked before it’s even out. Game sales are heavily frontloaded, most of them taking place in the very first weeks of release so keeping expectations high is a huge priority for publishers.

what is a review embargo

Most embargoes are not binding. The publisher simply trusts the reviewer not to disclose information and critics follow through. Large releases, especially in video games, may require the signing of a “non-disclosure agreement”, a legal document that places a burden on disclosing information, but most embargoes rely on the professionality of the parts involved.

BREAKING THE EMBARGO

Now, a critic could break the embargo and release information about the game before the agreed date. However, there’s not much of a reason to do it. Publishing a review of a game a few days earlier has no journalistic value, your assessment of a game will be the same as if you published it later. The only advantage of breaking the embargo is to try and be the first to the market, which only works once and makes you look poorly in the eyes of other critics and publishers.

Truth to be told, breaking an embargo ensures the publisher will never work with you again. You can count on not being sent review copies nor awarded interviews. Having a professional relationship with a publisher is more valuable than not having to wait. Either way, critics shouldn’t comment on hearsay, rumours or leaks and leaks you make yourself are no exception.

Now, it is possible for embargos to include clauses that are unfair. For example, some publishers try to abuse the system by setting earlier dates for some outlets than others. This way, the publisher can choose who reaps the benefits of being first to the market and, hence, get the most traffic. These outlets are the most likely to be favourable in their coverage, the implication being that you’ll get an advantage over others if you push scores up.

what is a review embargo

Similarly, some embargos prevent critics from talking openly about the games they review. Recently, Sony forbade critics from discussing many details of The Last of Us Part II , including the fate of any character and any “pivotal narratives”. While these limitations are lifted after release, publishers dictating what reviewers should or should not mention in their articles is a threat to their independence.

FAIR CRITICISM

Critics are responsible for rejecting any sort of pressure that could compromise their coverage. Agreeing to the kind of conditions listed above puts a serious constraint over your work and may put your integrity into question. But the fact is, anyone who did not agree to those conditions, wasn’t covering the biggest game of the year until everyone else does. Game journalism isn’t well-paid work and independence has a steep price.

Thankfully, most publishers do not try to manipulate reviews. In fact, you don’t tend to hear much from publishers beyond “here’s the code”, “please send me your address” and “link me to your review when it’s done”. Most critics share their thoughts freely, whether they were under embargo or not, and while potential pressure may linger in their mind, they do not bow to it.

In fact, the most common complaint critics have about embargoes is not publisher influence, but them being too short. Too often critics are sent 60 or 80 hour games with an embargo date of just one week. Working double shifts just to be able to meet the deadline is a terrible working experience.

Embargos can be a net positive for all stakeholders. They help publishers keep information contained before release, give critics an easier time reviewing games and the audience can better inform itself when they are most likely to make a purchase. Done well, they make the medium, and our reviews, better. But, like all aspects of our work, there might be potential pitfalls. We must seek to provide the best coverage possible while avoiding possible conflicts.

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what is a review embargo

The logic of journal embargoes: why we have to wait for scientific news

what is a review embargo

Visiting Instructor of Biological Engineering, Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT)

Disclosure statement

Vivian Siegel does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

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Rumors were flying through the blogosphere this winter: physicists at the Advanced Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory ( LIGO ) may finally have directly detected gravitational waves , ripples in the fabric of space-time predicted by Einstein 100 years ago in his general theory of relativity. Gravitational waves were predicted to be produced by cataclysmic events such as the collision of two black holes.

If true, it would be a very big deal: a rare chance for scientists to grab the attention of the public through news of cutting-edge research. So why were the scientists themselves keeping mum?

This wouldn’t be the first time scientists thought they had detected gravitational waves. In March 2014, a group claimed to have done so. In that case, scientists announced their discovery when they posted an article in arXiv , a preprint server where physicists and other scientists share research findings prior to acceptance by a peer-reviewed publications. Turns out that group was wrong – they were actually looking at galactic dust.

The LIGO scientists were more careful. Fred Raab, head of the LIGO laboratory, explained :

As we have done for the past 15 years, we take data, analyze the data, write up the results for publication in scientific journals, and once the results are accepted for publication, we announce results broadly on the day of publication or shortly thereafter.

And that’s what they did, timing their news conferences and media outreach to coincide with the official publication in the scientific journal Physical Review Letters about their discovery. Why did they delay their public announcement rather than spread the word as widely as possible as soon as possible?

Science’s standard operating procedure

Although it may sound unnecessarily cautious, the process Raab described is how most scientists prepare and vet discoveries prior to announcing them to the world – and, indeed, it’s the process most scientific journals insist upon. Nature , for example, prohibits authors from speaking with the press about a submitted paper until the week before publication, and then only under conditions set by the journal.

Scientific publishing serves both the scientist and the public. It’s a quid pro quo: the authors get to claim priority for the result – meaning they got there before any other scientists did – and in return the public (including competing scientists) gets access to the experimental design, the data and the reasoning that led to the result. Priority in the form of scientific publishing earns scientists their academic rewards, including more funding for their research, jobs, promotions and prizes; in return, they reveal their work at a level of detail that other scientists can build on and ideally replicate and confirm.

News coverage of a scientific discovery is another way for scientists to claim priority, but without the vetted scientific paper right there alongside it, there is no quid pro quo. The claim is without substance, and the public, while titillated, does not benefit – because no one can act on the claim until the scientific paper and underlying data are available.

Thus, most scientific journals insist on a “press embargo,” a time during which scientists and reporters who are given advanced copies of articles agree not to publish in the popular press until the scientific peer review and publishing process is complete. With the advent of preprint servers , however, this process itself is evolving.

First introduced in 1977, journal embargoes reflect a scientific journal’s desire both to protect its own newsworthiness and to protect the public from misinformation. If a result is wrong (as was the case with the 2014 gravitational wave result), peer review is supposed to catch it. At the least, it means experts other than the researchers themselves examined the experimental design and the data and agreed that the conclusions were justified and the interpretations reasonable.

Often, results are more “nuanced” than the news article or press conference suggests. Yes, this new drug combination makes a (minor) difference, but it doesn’t cure cancer. Finally, the result could be correct, but not because of the data in that paper, and the premature press conference claims an unwarranted priority that can disrupt other research. In all these cases, having access to the research article and the underlying data is critical for the news to be meaningful.

what is a review embargo

Purposes of a press embargo

A press embargo has additional benefits for the reporter, the journal and the public.

Multiple journalists get an equal chance to publish a well-researched and balanced article. In exchange for respecting the journal’s press embargo, reporters find out what’s being published in advance of publication. This gives multiple journalists a chance to read the scientific article, find experts who can help them make sense of the article, and publish a carefully crafted story. From the scientist’s (and scientific journal’s) perspective, this maximizes the quality and quantity of the coverage by the press.

The public gains access to the scientific article very close to the time they read the news story. The popular press tends to bias a story toward what’s “newsworthy” about it – and that sometimes winds up exaggerating or otherwise inaccurately summarizing the scientific article. When that article relates to human health, for instance, it’s important that doctors have access to the original scientific paper before their patients start inquiring about new treatments they’d heard about in the news.

Other scientific experts gain access to the scientific article as soon as the findings become news. Scientists who jump the gun and allow their research to become news before publication in an academic journal are making unvetted claims that can turn out to be less important once the peer-reviewed article eventually appears.

A press embargo can protect a scientist’s claim for priority in the face of competition from other scientists and journals. Scientists generally accept journal publication dates as indicators of priority – but when a discovery makes news, the journal considering a competitor’s paper often both releases its authors from the embargo and races the paper to publication. And, if your competitor’s paper comes out first, you’ve lost the priority race.

The embargo system allows time for prepublication peer review. Most experiments designed to address research questions are complicated and indirect. Reviewers often require additional experiments or analyses prior to publication. Prepublication peer review can take a long time, and its value has been questioned , but it is currently the norm. If a news story came out on the paper while it was under review, the process of peer review could be jeopardized by pressure to “show the data” based on the news article. Many journals would decline publication under those conditions, leaving the authors and public in limbo.

I know of no case in which talking about a discovery in advance of scientific publication helps the public. Yes, “breaking news” is exciting. But journalists and other writers can tell riveting stories about science that convey the excitement of discovery without breaking journal embargoes. And the scientific community can continue to work on speeding its communication with the public while preserving the quid pro quo of scientific publication.

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what is a review embargo

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Review Embargo – A Closer Look at its Purpose, Impact, and Controversies

Table of Contents

Introduction:

In the realm of product launches and entertainment media, review embargoes have become a common practice. A review embargo is an agreement between the producers or distributors of a product, film, or video game and the media outlets that receive early access to review it. This agreement stipulates that the media outlets cannot publish their reviews or opinions until a specific date and time, often coinciding with the official release. In this review, we will delve into the world of review embargoes, examining their purpose, impact on consumers and the media, and the controversies surrounding their implementation.

  • Purpose of Review Embargoes: Managing Expectations and Marketing Strategies

Review embargoes serve several purposes for producers and distributors. Firstly, they help manage expectations and control the narrative surrounding a product’s release. By allowing only selected media outlets to access the product early, the creators can ensure that initial reviews and impressions align with their marketing strategy. This approach enables them to generate buzz, build anticipation, and potentially drive higher sales or viewership.

Secondly, review embargoes can also provide an opportunity for final adjustments or improvements based on early feedback from trusted sources. This allows producers to address any issues or make necessary tweaks before the product reaches a wider audience.

  • Impact on Consumers: Balancing Information and Influence

For consumers, review embargoes present a double-edged sword. On one hand, embargoes can generate excitement and anticipation for a product, fueling the desire to be among the first to experience it. The controlled release of reviews and opinions can also create a sense of anticipation and suspense, making the final judgment even more valuable.

On the other hand, review embargoes limit the availability of critical information before making purchasing decisions. This lack of transparency can be frustrating for consumers who rely on unbiased reviews to gauge the quality, value, and suitability of a product. Moreover, embargoes can create a power imbalance, with media outlets and influencers potentially having more influence over public perception than the average consumer.

  • Impact on Media Outlets and Journalistic Integrity

Review embargoes can significantly impact media outlets and their ability to provide timely and informative content. While embargoes can grant privileged access to products or events, they also impose limitations on when reviews can be published. This can create a race against time for journalists and reviewers to meet the deadline, potentially compromising the depth and quality of their assessments.

Additionally, embargoes can exert pressure on media outlets to conform to the creators’ expectations or risk being excluded from future opportunities. This raises concerns about journalistic independence and integrity, as outlets may feel compelled to withhold or alter negative opinions to maintain a favorable relationship with the producers or distributors.

  • Controversies and Ethical Considerations

Review embargoes have faced criticism and controversies over the years. One common concern is that embargoes can suppress negative reviews or prevent critical information from reaching the public before they make purchasing decisions. This can create a skewed perception of a product’s quality and limit consumers’ ability to make informed choices.

Another ethical consideration revolves around the relationship between creators and reviewers. Embargoes may create an environment where reviewers feel indebted to the creators, potentially compromising their objectivity and impartiality. This can undermine the credibility and trustworthiness of reviews, ultimately eroding consumer confidence.

  • The Evolving Landscape: Social Media and User Reviews

The rise of social media platforms and user-generated content has challenged the traditional dynamics of review embargoes. Consumers now have access to immediate opinions and impressions from fellow users, influencers, and online communities. This democratization of information has shifted the balance of power, allowing consumers to form their opinions based on a wider range of perspectives.

Social media platforms like Twitter, YouTube, and online forums provide spaces for individuals to share their thoughts and experiences without being bound by review embargoes. This has given rise to the phenomenon of “user reviews,” where everyday consumers become influential voices in shaping public opinion. User reviews offer a more diverse and grassroots perspective on products and can provide valuable insights that may not be captured in traditional media reviews.

Furthermore, the instantaneous nature of social media allows for real-time discussions and reactions to a product’s release. Consumers can engage in conversations, ask questions, and seek advice from others who have already experienced the product. This interactive and dynamic environment enhances the consumer decision-making process and promotes transparency.

In response to these changes, creators and distributors have had to adapt their strategies. Some have embraced the power of user reviews and actively engage with consumers on social media platforms. Others have adjusted their embargo policies to strike a balance between generating buzz and providing consumers with sufficient information to make informed choices.

Conclusion:

Review embargoes, while serving specific purposes for creators and distributors, have both positive and negative implications for consumers, media outlets, and the overall landscape of product evaluations. On one hand, embargoes can build excitement and anticipation, contributing to marketing strategies and allowing for potential adjustments before wide release. On the other hand, embargoes can limit access to information, compromise journalistic integrity, and suppress negative reviews.

As the digital age continues to shape the way we consume and evaluate products, the influence of traditional review embargoes is being challenged by social media, user-generated content, and online communities. Consumers now have more avenues to seek information and opinions from a diverse range of sources, empowering them to make informed decisions.

Moving forward, striking a balance between the interests of creators, distributors, media outlets, and consumers will be crucial. Transparent communication, ethical considerations, and an understanding of the evolving digital landscape will shape the future of review embargoes. Ultimately, the goal should be to provide consumers with access to reliable, unbiased information, while allowing creators to promote their products effectively.

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what is a review embargo

What Exactly Is a Game Embargo?

Recent problems with games like AC: Unity, Destiny, and The Crew make us ask, what are game embargoes and how do they affect reviews?

what is a review embargo

As often happens every year or so, controversy erupts over a much anticipated video game’s release. It can be due to game glitches, backtracking on features offered, or even publishers getting into conflicts with game journalists over reviews.

Ubisoft’s recent antics with Assassain’s Creed: Unity and The Crew have been center stage of the theater that is developer temper tantrums. With Unity , Ubisoft hyped up a release for its biggest franchise and then released a game  riddled with glitches.  Not only that, but it decided to institute a game embargo until 12 hours after the game had launched, meaning gamers had no idea whether Unity was worth the price tag (between $60 and $100) or not. And with The Crew,  Ubisoft has stated on its blog that fans shouldn’t listen to early reviews of the game, but just to try it for themselves.

But what do game embargoes have to do with publishers having public meltdowns? What even  is a game embargo?  Look no further, because we’ve got a run-down of what game embargoes are, and why they’re beginning to show signs of change.

The Agreement

At its core, game embargoes are a tit-for-tat agreement between game journalists and publishers before a game’s release. The reality is that today’s fans of films, TV and video games will often seek out information about what they want to see before they see it. With information so widely accessible online, fans will take into account the opinions of journalists and critics before making their purchase. Publishers have come to accept this, and this is where the agreement comes in.

With information so widely accessible online, fans will take in the opinions of journalists and critics before making their purchase. Publishers have come to accept this. And this is where the agreement comes in.

Publishers like Ubisoft, EA, Square Enix, Game Freak, and the like, will contact a variety of gaming journalists, gaming news outlets, and even Let’s Play YouTubers, asking if they would like to have early access to a game nearing its release. These reviewers are sent copies of the game, with the understanding that they will play them and write about them.

Publishers stipulate that these reviewers do not publish or share in any way what they’ve seen of the game until the embargo is lifted. Reviewers and journalists often sign a Non-Disclosure Agreement (NDA) , a very real legal document businesses often use to prevent other parties from speaking publicly about something, usually a product, for a specified period of time.

As well, publishers often send games along with a “guide” detailing which aspects of the game shouldn’t be revealed in reviews or other derivative works. Most agreements state that this period of secrecy will end near or immediately before the game’s release to the general public. This period between game access and acceptable publish date is the “embargo”.

Embargoes and early access to content for critics and reviewers are not unique to video games. Embargoes have a long history in the film, TV, and book publishing industries. Publishers want their works to be viewed and critiqued as part of the process of mass consumption. As the video game industry has exploded in terms of size and profitability, it has taken the idea of reviews and embargoes to new extremes.

What’s in it for Reviewers: Information and Time

Two driving forces are behind much of what gaming journalists try to do in their work, and game embargoes satisfy both of them. First, many gaming journalists (and gaming news outlets) aim to be among the first to report something new in the industry. Second, journalists like to have enough time to formulate coherent, thoughtful, and impactful prose about a news story. The two are somewhat at odds with one another, and in most cases journalists tend towards one or the other for most articles. Early access to an upcoming game gives a journalist the time to write an in-depth piece before its content really becomes “news”.

Journalists also benefit because Non-Disclosure Agreements prevent rival news outlets from publishing reviews early too. They don’t need to worry that their pieces will be the last out of the gate just because they held back their content. One way to look at it is that NDAs level the playing field of reporting on game releases. Another view is that publishers effectively police these news outlets’ content with the agreements.

Furthermore, writers have more time to review games that are often twenty, thirty, even eighty hours in length. 

Furthermore, writers have more time to review games that are often twenty, thirty, even eighty hours in length. Reviews for games like the recently released Dragon Age: Inquisition are complicated projects, ones that journalists must undertake with care and patience.  A few weeks allows one to play the game the way it was meant to be played, and journalists can give readers a more holistic and thoughtful review than if they rushed a review in the first week of general release. 

What’s in it for Publishers: Market Control, Ready-Made Publicity

Publishers are not benevolent entities. the impetus behind early access to games is a calculated move: publishers want good press for their games, as they know that a solid review a few days before general release can have a positive impact on early sales. it’s a gamble of course: reviewers might find a game to be glitchy or less-than-stellar. and a bad review from a reputable source can scare away potential buyers. a variety of internet forums feature discussions about how bad reviews and game embargoes correlate with lower overall game sales., there is a clear imbalance of power within this arrangement. news outlets are not generally in a position to ask for games, and historically publishers like nintendo used to pay for publicity of its games. with the vast expanse that is the internet and the fragmentation of gaming news readership, publishers can pick and choose which news sources to give early access to. this exclusivity promotes the inclusion of the aforementioned “guides” detailing what should and shouldn’t be spoiled, and even how to write the review itself (known in the industry as “ pr guidance “)., breaking an embargo.

Why don’t reviewers just publish their reviews when they want? Without going into too much game theory, imagining what would happen if a reviewer did break a game embargo shows us that it wouldn’t be in the interest of the publisher or the review. Here’s an example: a gaming news site decides to publish its review of  Assassain’s Creed: Unity before the embargo ends, as its staff believes the game’s glitches give them a moral obligation to tell their readers. Ubisoft, being the less-than-forgiving publisher that it is, either threatens legal action (remember, NDAs are legal agreements that signatories are accountable to), swears it will never give that news outlet early access again, or both.

So while the news site gets out its one review of  Unity  early, it suffers in the future (and perhaps indefinitely) by not having early access to other games. 

Even if that website’s staff doesn’t care about reviewing future Ubisoft titles, other publishers like Bungie or BioWare may be scared off by this reneging on an embargo agreement. The result is that the news site gets out its one review of  Unity  early and earns a bunch of views, but it suffers in the future by not having the early access to games that other outlets still enjoy. Readers look elsewhere for reviews of the games they’re interested in, and the world continues on with one less reviewing news site.

Game Embargoes: An Outdated Concept?

There are some indications that game embargoes aren’t what they used to be, Ubisoft’s recent mistakes aside. As games become longer, more involved artistic projects that can require weeks of gameplay to complete (or even years, in the case of online MMORPGs), reviews will take more time and effort on the part of reviewers to write. In an odd turn of events, some news outlets have decided to wait until well after a game’s release to publish their own in-depth review, one that takes into account every aspect of a game (some examples of this are  Gears of War: Judgement or SimCity .

It isn’t to say that game embargoes are a thing of the past, but the balance of power has certainly changed recently. Readers have begun to realize that the earliest reviews aren’t always the most accurate representations of huge AAA titles. Developers and publishers are beginning to admit that such reviews might not even be informative anymore .

Concurrent with this shift in attitudes is the reality that “embargo” has nearly become a pejorative in the video games industry. Some journalists and gaming critics (though not all) see them as constricting and paternalistic, a tool of a mistrusting publisher. It’s very likely this view has contributed to more critics publishing their content after the embargoes end, on their own terms.

For the moment, review embargoes will still be a part of publishers’ release schedules, but it will be very interesting to see if the principles of game embargoes and NDAs, and the status quo between publishers and reviewers, change any time soon.

About the author

what is a review embargo

Michael Falero

GameSkinny Senior Intern. Writer, Gamer, British TV nerd. Looking out for that big blue box.

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What is a movie review embargo?

what is a review embargo

In this post I’m offering up a brief guide to movie review embargoes; explaining the reasons behind them and what they can often mean. This is a back-to-basics guide, so if you already know all there is to know about movie review embargoes, feel free to take a look at one of the many other posts on It’s A Stampede!

But if you feel like learning something new, then stick with me and dive right in!

What are review embargoes?

what is a review embargo

Review embargoes are limited-time restrictions which temporarily stop media outlets from publishing a review. The embargoes run from the time a reviewer sits down to a preview screening until a set date in the future, which can be weeks or sometimes hours before the movie goes on general release.

Who has to adhere to review embargoes?

Any reviewer attending a press screening, who is informed there is a review embargo on the film they are viewing, is expected to adhere to a review embargo.

How does a movie studio enforce a review embargo?

All attendees of press screenings, where specific embargoes are in place, are expected to sign a form agreeing to adhere to the embargo. If they break this agreement, by publishing their review early, then the studio is less likely to invite them to take part in future screenings. Basically, if you’re a reviewer and you want to be part of the game, then you need to stick to the rules.

Is there a difference between an embargo placed on a blog/newspaper and an embargo placed on social media?

what is a review embargo

Usually press attending a preview screening are allowed to make a comment about the movie on social media. Studios feel that initial reactions on social media are usually different to carefully thought out, wordy reviews published in a newspaper or on a blog. Social media reactions are still subject to embargoes, but will sometimes arrive days ahead of published reviews.

Why do movie studios impose review embargoes?

In theory, movie studios impose embargoes in order to restrict the release of information about a movie, thus reducing the amount of spoilers that enter the public domain. Preview screenings can often take place a good few weeks before a movie opens in theatres, so studios put embargoes in place so that spoilers can be held off until near to the time of the movie’s release.

Do all movie studios place embargoes on reviews?

Not all films have review embargoes, as smaller, independent films often encourage reviewers to talk about their movie as soon as possible to get people excited about its release. However, most big budget studio releases will have some kind of embargo in place, usually for tent-pole releases such as Bond films, Marvel movies etc.

What is the time frame for a review embargo?

How long is a piece of string? There is no specific time frame for a review embargo, other than the one set by the studio at that given time. For example, one studio might screen a movie two weeks before it opens to the public, and set the review embargo at one week ahead of its release, thus creating hype in the days leading up to its debut. Other studios might screen a movie the day before it opens to the public, and place an embargo that restricts the release of reviews until just a few hours before it arrives in cinemas.

Are review embargoes necessary?

It depends on your point of view, but in some cases, yes they can be vital to a film’s success. If a movie is well received by critics and the embargo is lifted early then the hype train for the film can begin. Good publicity can encourage audiences into movie theatres and this can dramatically increase a movie’s profitability.

If a movie is not well received by critics then placing an embargo until the very last minute can help to reduce potential losses during the opening weekend. Negative reviews can put audiences off, so the less time the reviews have to make an impact, the more time the studio has to convince audiences to buy a ticket.

If movie studios enforce embargoes up until a day before the release of a film, does it mean the film is bad?

what is a review embargo

Not always, but it is usually a sign that something is wrong. In theory, if a studio is 100% convinced their movie is going to be a success, why wouldn’t they shout this from the rooftops at the earliest opportunity?

Of course, this isn’t always the case and some films do simply have really late review embargoes – but always be suspicious if a studio is hyping up a film but restricting reviewers from talking about it.

Do bad reviews really harm movies?

This is the source of much debate and there is of course the old adage that all publicity is good publicity, but negative comments don’t usually aid a movie. If every reviewer published a review which denounced a movie, then it would put people off going to see it.

However, if enough people wanted to see the movie anyway, then regardless of the reviews the film would still attract audiences. Suicide Squad (2016) is a good example of this as it attracted largely negative reviews when it opened, yet still became a financial success. Equally, Blade Runner 2049 (2017) received largely glowing reviews at the time of its release yet struggled to get audiences into the multiplexes.

Is there anything else I should know about review embargoes?

Embargoes can be both helpful and frustrating, but they are important to be aware of. As mentioned above, late embargoes can be an indication that a movie is a stinker, so bare this in mind.

The important thing to remember is that cinema is subjective, so no matter what a reviewer says (good or bad) it’s up to you to decide if you like a movie or not. An early or late review embargo will never change this.

And now you know.

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The Quorum

What is The Quorum?

For decades studios have relied on pre-release tracking data to see what people think of upcoming movies. This data is extremely important in determining the health of a film's marketing campaign. This data has never been available to the general public...until now. Welcome to The Quorum.

Where are the NOPE reviews? How do embargoes impact a film? We wanted to find out.

Nothing sends a shiver down one’s spine, quite like the words “review embargo.” Conventional wisdom says studios will release reviews for a film far before release if they think the notices will be good. This gives them a talking point to use in the campaign down the home stretch. 

Case in point, TOP GUN: MAVERICK. The trades published their reviews two weeks before the movie opened. It remains the best-reviewed title of the year, which Paramount certainly leaned into in the run-up to the film’s release. MAVERICK may end up being the highest grossing film of the year. Coincidence?

Conversely, reviews published in the 11 th  hour are meant to limit access to a would-be low, Rotten Tomatoes score. The less time audiences have to read the reviews, the less time there is for bad buzz to take hold. Sony embargoed the reviews for MORBIUS until the day before it opened. We all know how that ended.

But is that true? Does the length of the embargo correlate to good or bad reviews? 

NOPE, one of the most highly anticipated films of 2022, is two days away from release, and reviews have yet to come out. Is that a bad sign?

To answer that, we looked at the 40 films that have had theater-only, wide releases this year. For each film, we pulled two metrics. First, we used Rotten Tomato scores (RTS) to see if movies with late reviews earned poorer scores. Taking that a step further, next, we wanted to see if bad reviews resulted in poor word-of-mouth. We used the % drop in week 2 to measure that. 

For the conventional wisdom to be proven, we’d expect longer embargoes to lead to poor reviews, resulting in shorter playability at the box office. 

We started by looking at the date of the first trade review (Variety or The Hollywood Reporter) for each of the 40 films. We used the trades as our trigger since these are the publications that are first out with reviews. We then looked at how far the review date was from opening day. 

As you can see below, nine films released reviews more than two weeks before opening (dark red), another seven were more than a week out (medium red), while the other 24 were within the last four days (pink), with the sweet spot being three to four days out. NOPE is now two days out. 

The last two columns show the average RTS and the percentage of films that are certified fresh for each group. For example, 100% of the movie with a trailer released at least two weeks before release were certified fresh. The average RTS for those films is 83.  

You can see that scores drop as the window between trailer and film release shrinks. Only half the films with reviews released in the final week were certified fresh. 

what is a review embargo

So, we can see that the longer a studio waits, the greater the risk for poor reviews. But how does that translate at the box office? To answer that, we looked at how much the film dropped in week two. We chose that as our metric because a bad movie often results in bad word-of-mouth. And bad word-of-mouth usually results in significant drop-offs after opening weekend. 

It turns out that there is NOT a very strong correlation between reviews and a film’s ability to hold in week two. Among the films with reviews more than two weeks out, the average drop at the box office was 48%. That’s a pretty good hold.

When we look at the next group – the films with reviews more than a week out – the average week two drop is 61%. So far, the pattern holds. Early reviews lead to better holds. 

But, when we look at the last group with reviews released within days of the film’s opening, they average a 56% drop in week two. In other words, the movies in the pink group held better than those in the light red group. ‘

What does this all mean? The data shows that the longer a studio waits to release the reviews, the greater the chance for bad reviews. At the same time, those low reviews do NOT necessarily mean the film will see large drops at the box office after its opening weekend. 

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Diablo 4 Review Embargo Date, Time Countdown

Diablo 4 Review Embargo Date, Time Countdown

Diablo 4 is one of the most anticipated games of the year 2023 that will put you against The Mother of Sanctuary, Lilith, who wants to spread her evil across the world. You will be able to pick your class and learn different abilities to use against her and stop her from completing her ambitions.

The game will be available to preload on May 30 at 4 PM PDT, and with that, players are eagerly waiting for its embargo to lift to find out what the experts have to say about the game; here is the exact Diablo 4 review embargo date and time.

Update on 30 May 2023: Read our complete, spoiler-free Diablo 4 review now!

Diablo 4 Review Embargo Date and Time

Diablo 4 Review Embargo Date and Time.

Diablo 4 embargo will lift on May 30 at 9 AM PT ; however, you won't get its spoilers like storyline, bosses, etc., and for that, you will have to wait for the full embargo to lift on June 2 .

You can then have a detailed look at its reviews and decide if you want to purchase the game or not, as it is an expensive one .

Its Standard Edition will cost you $69.99, and if you want its early access , you can buy its Digital Deluxe Edition or Ultimate Edition for $89.99 and $99.99, respectively. The early access to Diablo 4 will begin on June 1 at 4 PM PDT; however, if you have Standard Edition, you will be able to jump into the game on June 6 at 4 PM PDT.

Will you fight the darkness? Deliver us from Evil 6.6.23 #DiabloIV Pre-purchase the Ultimate Edition for Early Access. pic.twitter.com/TFDJAG8Qsz — Diablo (@Diablo) May 25, 2023

For more Diablo 4 , be sure to check out our dedicated section or some of our Guides & Tutorials  just below:

  • All Diablo 4 Vampiric Powers, Effects & Pact Requirements
  • Diablo 4 Pact Armor: How To Get, Pact Types & More
  • Diablo 4 Grigoire Boss: How To Unlock & Unique Rewards
  • Diablo 4 Echo of Varshan: How To Unlock & Unique Rewards in S2
  • Diablo 4 The Beast in the Ice: How To Unlock & Unique Rewards
  • Diablo 4 Lord Zir Boss: How To Unlock & Unique Rewards
  • Diablo 4 Echo of Duriel: How To Unlock & Unique Rewards
  • Diablo 4 Blood Harvest Events: Locations, Activities & Rewards
  • Diablo 4 New Unique Items: Effect, Stats & Class
  • Diablo 4 New Paragon Glyphs: Effects, Bonuses & Stats
  • Diablo 4 Seasonal Stash Items: Transfers & New Withdraw Tab
  • Diablo 4 Hunter's Acclaim: Reward Tiers and Reputation
  • Diablo 4 Steam Release Time & Date Countdown
  • Diablo 4 Season 2 Nightmare Dungeons Rotation
  • When Does Diablo 4 Season 2 Start?
  • How To Prepare For Diablo 4 Season 2 Five Essential Tips
  • Best Diablo 4 Barbarian Build: Skills, Stats, Items, Arsenal, Legendary Aspects
  • Best Diablo 4 Necromancer Build: Skills, Stats, Items, Legendary Aspects
  • Best Diablo 4 Sorcerer Build: Skills, Stats, Items, Legendary Aspects
  • Best Diablo 4 Druid Build: Skills, Stats, Items, Legendary Aspects
  • Best Diablo 4 Rogue Build: Skills, Stats, Items, Specialization, Legendary Aspects
  • Diablo 4 Class Tier List: Best Solo Builds
  • Best Diablo 4 Build Calculator: Skill Tree For All Classes & More
  • Best Diablo 4 Paragon Board Planner
  • Best Diablo 4 Class & Build For Beginners
  • Best Upheaval Barbarian Build in Diablo 4
  • Best Lightning Sorcerer Build in Diablo 4
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  • Does Diablo 4 Have Ray Tracing on PC or Consoles? Answered
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  • Diablo 4 Server Regions: Is D4 Region-Locked?
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  • Can You Play Diablo 4 On Steam Deck?
  • Does Diablo 4 Have An Offline Mode? - Answered
  • Diablo 4 Gets DLSS 3 & NVIDIA Reflex Support
  • Diablo 4 on ASUS ROG Ally: Performance & Compatibility
  • Diablo 4 Fractured Peaks Guide: Map, Dungeons, Strongholds & More
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  • Diablo 4 Healing Vial (Potions): Levels, Upgrade Costs & Effects
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  • Get The Butcher's Cleaver Unique Item in Diablo 4
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  • Diablo 4 Incense: All Types, Materials & Effects
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  • Diablo 4 Barbarian Challenges: All Title Rewards & How To Complete
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  • All Diablo 4 Legendary Aspects & Powers For Barbarians
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  • Strongholds in Diablo 4 & Rewards Explained
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  • Diablo 4 Kor Dragan Stronghold: How To Clear & Rewards
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  • Diablo 4 Nostrava Stronghold: How To Clear & Rewards
  • Diablo 4 Moordaine Lodge Stronghold: How To Clear, Location & Rewards
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  • Diablo 4 Ruins of Qara-Yiso Stronghold: How To Beat, Location & Rewards
  • Diablo 4 Ashava Spawn Times, Location, and How To Beat Easily
  • Diablo 4 Wandering Death World Boss: How To Beat, Spawn Location & Loot
  • Diablo 4 Avarice World Boss: How To Beat, Spawn Location & More
  • Diablo 4 Lilith's Lament: How To Beat Final Act 1 Boss
  • Diablo 4 Den Mother Boss: How To Beat, Location & Rewards
  • Diablo 4 Staggering System Explained: How To Stagger Bosses
  • Diablo 4 Lord Avitus Location, How To Beat and Loot Drops
  • Diablo 4 The Blood Bishop Location, How To Defeat, Loot Drops
  • Diablo 4 The Butcher Location, How To Defeat, Loot Drops
  • Diablo 4 Armor System: Damage Reduction, Monsters & More
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  • Who Is Lilith In Diablo 4? Mother Of Sanctuary Lore Explained
  • Who Is Inarius In Diablo 4: Rogue Archangel Lore Explained
  • Who Is The Main Villain in Diablo 4? Lilith Or Inarius?
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  • Diablo 4 Voice Actors: Full Character & Cast List
  • Who Is Lorath Nahr In Diablo 4
  • Diablo 4 World Tier Difficulties Won't Have Level Requirements After All
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  • Diablo 4 Season 1 Varshan the Consumed Boss: Location & Rewards
  • Diablo 4 Hardcore Characters Need To Be Alive For Season 1 Renown Progress
  • Diablo 4 Malignant Hearts Types & Powers in Season 1
  • Diablo 4 Scroll of Amnesia: How To Get & Effect
  • When Does Diablo 4 Season 1 End? Countdown To End Date & Time
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  • Diablo 4 Malignant Hearts: How To Get, Unlock & Use
  • Diablo 4 Battle Pass Price: How Much Does It Cost?
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  • Diablo 4 Battle Pass Differences, Explained
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  • Diablo 4 Season Blessings Explained
  • What is Diablo 4 Season Journey? Explained
  • Diablo 4 Roadmap, Features, Seasonal Content & More

Our section keeps growing, so check for new guides daily! Don't forget to pick up one of the Diablo 4 Editions and join the fight to save Sanctuary soon.

Rabia Sayal

Written by Rabia Sayal

Rabia leads the coverage of her first love,  VALORANT , and is also a die-hard fan of Genshin Impact’ s lore and character designs, though she misses playing retro games like Mario, Roadrash, Need for Speed II, and a lot more. She is currently enjoying Honkai: Star Rail  and is eagerly waiting for  Minecraft The Wild update . You will also find her playing Fireboy and Watergirl when she is feeling pretty lazy and wants to play It Takes Two once again sometime soon. You can also find her past work on the likes of Gamepur ,  Sportskeeda ,  Hard Drive , and more publications. Along with being a gamer, she has done Masters in Mathematics and loves to play with numbers.

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Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth review embargo date is great news for FF7 fans

Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth review embargo date is great news for FF7 fans

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Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth is one of the biggest games coming out this year. The FF7 Remake was a fantastic triumph back in 2020, and it’s been an excruciating wait for part two. While we still have over a week to wait for the full game to come out and become playable, the great news is that the  Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth review embargo date  is way more imminent.

Although the game doesn’t launch until February 29th, you can  download the Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth demo  right now. Even if you don’t want spoilers and already know you’re going to play the game, it’s definitely worth downloading the demo for the addictive piano mini-game alone.

FF7 Rebirth is the  second installment in the remake trilogy , and, if you buy a physical copy, you will be greeted by  two discs . Square Enix has boasted about how massive the game is with a huge open-world playground combined with dozens of mini-games and beautiful graphics. We already know the game is going to be stellar, but it’s still worth looking forward to the very imminent review embargo date.

When is the Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth review embargo date?

The leaked  review embargo date for Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth is February 22nd . This comes courtesy of reliable leaker  Tom Henderson  on Twitter. They report that FF7 reviews will be shared at 6 AM PT/ 9 AM ET/ 2 PM GMT.

Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth review embargo tweet

This is fantastic news for the community. If you have any reservations about pre-ordering the game at all, reviews will give you plenty of time to better judge for yourself whether the game is worth buying at launch. Granted, it’s already a no-brainer for Final Fantasy fans, but it’s good for people who are perhaps newer to the series.

It’s also a good sign that Square Enix is very confident in the game. While the timeliness of final impressions isn’t always indicative of the game’s quality, it has occasionally been a bad sign in the past such as when the Forspoken review embargo lifted just one day before its release date. There was also recently a whole fiasco concerning reviews for Suicide Squad Kill The Justice League.

The Final Fantasy 7 Remake has a  Metacritic  score of 87 with Intergrade at 89. FF7 Rebirth promises to be much bigger, better, and more ambitious, so we’re positive it can crack the 90s to become one of the top-rated PS5 exclusives.

It is exclusive to PS5 consoles upon release, but there is the likelihood it will join PC post-launch. The FF7 Remake landed on PlayStation in April 2020 before it joined the Epic Games store in December 2021. It then joined Steam in June 2022, so perhaps we’ll see something similar happen with Rebirth.

In other PlayStation news, Sony will soon pull the curtain aside on the  PS Plus March 2024 games . The  upcoming games 2024 release schedule  also includes two imminent PlayStation console exclusives with Rise of Ronin and Stellar Blade. Lastly, it’s confirmed that  four Xbox console exclusives are coming to PS5 .

Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth launches on February 29th.

The DCEU's Final Movie Gets Worrying Critics Update

DCEU Justice League members

News of Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom 's review embargo may be worrying for fans of the DCEU . 

Set to release Friday, December 22, Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom is more than a sequel to the 2018 film; it's also the final film of the DCEU ahead of James Gunn and Peter Safran's reboot of the franchise.

Amidst all the negativity surrounding the sequel and rather dismal box office projections for Jason Momoa's likely final run as Arthur Curry , critics reviewing the Warner Bros. film received an equally concerning update.

Aquaman 2's Worrying Review Window

Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom poster

Critic Dave Gonzalez revealed that the review embargo for Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom is Thursday, December 21 at 8:00 a.m. MT / 10:00 a.m. ET.

This is one day prior to the sequel's U.S. debut , leaving little time for audiences to absorb reviews. 

But for select countries and territories where Aquaman 2 releases on December 20, reviews won't be posted until the day after; and others, on the day of. 

For example, in the U.K., where the final DCEU chapter premieres on December 21, reviews will be posted that same day or even after the movie has already come out. 

While not always the case, a narrow window (or no window) between the critics' embargo and a movie's release is often a sign of the studio's lack of confidence, suggesting a film's poor quality and an expectation of poor reviews.   

Other Reasons for Aquaman 2's Critics Update

While it does appear that Warner Bros. is bracing for yet another comic book movie flop , the studio may have other reasons for this tiny timeframe. 

One possibility is to prevent spoilers, such as how Aquaman's story and the DCEU end. 

But it's also worth noting that this DC film franchise has a history of tight review embargos which has worked to its advantage, such as in the case of 2017's Wonder Woman .

At the moment, the strategy behind Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom 's embargo update remains to be seen, but it's unlikely to improve the discouraging narrative surrounding the film thus far.

Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom arrives in theaters on Friday, December 22. 

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Other   iPhone 15 review embargo lift time?

  • Thread starter TJ82
  • Start date Sep 13, 2023
  • Sort by reaction score
  • iPhone, iPad, and iPod Touch

TJ82

macrumors 65816

  • Sep 13, 2023

And what site would you recommend for honest photo and video comparison testing? Considering the 15 PM but really am looking for really good indoors/low light performance. Have no other interest really.  

ericg301

macrumors 68020

Usually it’s like the Wednesday before release…so the 20, in the morning  

Solid_Snake

Macrumors member.

  • Sep 16, 2023
TJ82 said: And what site would you recommend for honest photo and video comparison testing? Considering the 15 PM but really am looking for really good indoors/low light performance. Have no other interest really. Click to expand...

macrumors regular

iPhonedo on YouTube generally does a fantastic job, but his interests have expanded well beyond Apple and his novel approaches sometimes means his review, while the best, won’t be the first. Otherwise I really like Tyler Stalman’s work, who superbly covers photography. Austin Mann ’s photography journal highlights what a professional travel photographer can accomplish, and lux (creator of camera app Halide) dives deeply into the technical details while providing some amazing photos.  

Ghost_User

macrumors newbie

  • Sep 18, 2023

His videos are usuually good and I do like them allthough I cant help but feel like most reviewers are trying very hard to walk some kinf of line so that they not anger any sides, you say Apple is much better than some andorid phone and you have an army of Indians engaging in a targeted harasment, Sadly it's the reality we live in  

brgjoe

macrumors 6502

I really like MKBHD's reviews. He does a good job of explaining the tech, without the videos being too wrapped up in a lot of technical jargon. And I know everyone is biased to one degree or another, but I think he calls it as he sees it without being a uberfan of any particular platform. He's always my first go to when a new product comes out.  

brgjoe said: I really like MKBHD's reviews. He does a good job of explaining the tech, without the videos being too wrapped up in a lot of technical jargon. And I know everyone is biased to one degree or another, but I think he calls it as he sees it without being a uberfan of any particular platform. He's always my first go to when a new product comes out. Click to expand...

FrankySavvy

FrankySavvy

Macrumors 68000.

Looks like Mark Gurman confirmed iPhone 15 Pro and iPhone 15 reviews embargo being lifted at 6:00AM PST, 9:00AM EST tomorrow Tuesday (9/19/2023). A day earlier then I expected. https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1703863183042359478  

  • Sep 19, 2023

If you're interested in videography, I came across this review today and really enjoyed it. He quickly touches on the "controversy" of the different focal lengths (despite a lot of misinformed online comments, it's not just a crop and uses the Neural Engine, as was also confirmed by Apple in a Petapixel interview) and filmed the entire thing in ProRes Log. I watched it on my Studio Display and found the quality impressive.  

Embargo is lifted, the reviews are pouring in!  

Can anyone recommend the best one to watch?  

Ariel32 said: Can anyone recommend the best one to watch? Click to expand...

Helldivers giving a thumbs up

Helldivers 2 review

Bombastic, funny and challenging, but still a bit buggy., our verdict.

Server issues aside, Helldivers 2 is a bombastic, strategically engaging and funny squad shooter.

PC Gamer's got your back Our experienced team dedicates many hours to every review, to really get to the heart of what matters most to you. Find out more about how we evaluate games and hardware.

What is it? The sequel to 2015's Helldivers, an online squad shooter inspired by Starship Troopers. It switches the original's top-down perspective for a fully 3D, over the shoulder view.  

Expect to pay £35/$40

Release date Out now

Developer Arrowhead Game Studios

Publisher PlayStation PC

Reviewed on RTX 2070, i7-10750H, 16GB RAM

Steam Deck Playable

Link Official site  

Picture the scene: Four soldiers make a desperate scramble for their dropship on an alien planet, pursued by enormous, dagger-clawed bugs. Machine gun fire rattles, green goo erupts, the landing pad teems with beasts as the quartet piles through the boarding hatch and their ride blasts off at the last available second. It could be a Hollywood action sequence, but in Helldivers 2 it's merely the end of another mission.

Indeed, it's amazing just how often a Helldivers 2 sortie climaxes in screaming, skin-of-the-teeth heroics. And it remains exciting time after time, because that Hollywood ending is never guaranteed. Maybe you get tagged yards from completing your great escape. Maybe by a spray of bullets from a wheeling teammate. Maybe the group's impossibly overrun, yet one of you somehow dives home and lives to tell the tale. Or maybe no one makes it at all (mercifully, you still get rewards for any completed objectives).

Starship bloopers

It's not only the denouement of missions that make lasting memories either. In this four-player squad shooter (solo play is possible, but not much fun), every element harmonises explosively, resulting in scenes that really could have been choreographed for the movies. And, well, in a sense they were. Helldivers 2 is unashamedly a mash of sci-fi action film tropes, with a large slice of Starship Troopers on proud display, sprinkles of Aliens and the Terminator series on top. Every line of its code works to recreate the feel of their iconic scenes—panic, bravado, dark humour—through improvised mayhem.

Leaning into Starship Troopers' scenario is a smart choice for the tone of the game too. As with its predecessor, Helldivers 2 apes Paul Verhoeven's 1997 satire at every turn, as citizens of Super Earth fight for freedom and democracy by offering their lives to the churn of endless war. True, the writing here is little more than a pale impression of its inspiration, yet it grants the action a glorious absurdity that sparks wild gambits and frequent hilarity.

The appeal comes from the idea that, despite the propaganda, you aren't some Master Chief super soldier, but a hapless nobody, plunged into enemy territory to sacrifice yourself for vague ideals. You will be crushed, burned, impaled and probably blown up by equally out-of-their-depth teammates, so every onslaught you survive is a well-earned victory, and every death is a tragi-comic side effect of the situation. Besides, seconds after your demise, one of your squadmates calls in reinforcements, and before you know it you're barrelling down from orbit in a bullet-like capsule to rejoin the fray. Just hope they took care not to summon you near a pack of killer bugs or cyborgs.

One of the most consistently brilliant concepts in Helldivers 2, in fact, is that support always arrives from the sky, launched by your personal starship, which hangs like a satellite above your position. In many ways, this sequel is a remake of the first game with added live service progression and a switch of perspective, from top-down to over-the-shoulder, but that switch is a genuine game changer, both because it makes the fights so much more up close and personal, and because of your connection with the heavens, as drops from above pepper the battlefield.

Not only do reinforcements arrive from on high—with a hefty thud that can smash fragile scenery or bugs—but so do what the game calls stratagems, which means equipment, heavy weapons and devastating firework displays of airstrikes and orbital laser fire. Each combatant selects four stratagems before landing, all restricted by cooldown timers, and managing these is the difference between being some schmuck holding an assault rifle and a few grenades, and a cackling exterminator who's a danger to insect, machine and human alike.

Air and orbital strikes are a quick way to decimate swathes of enemies, but equally the surest means of butchering your friends.

You see, air and orbital strikes are a quick way to decimate swathes of enemies, but equally the surest means of butchering your friends. You make the call by throwing a metal ball, which acts as the target point for the barrage—a comically imprecise method for a precision strike—then a red beam appears from the sky and you have seconds to clear the area before the boom, the shake and a stunning display of smoke and flames. That red laser can thus be your saviour, or the harbinger of imminent death.

It's the same with automatic gun turrets, mine pods and beefy hand-held ordnance. You literally can't live without them, but their deployment might work against you, whittling down your reinforcement stock faster than the enemy could have hoped. And even with an organised squad, mistakes happen simply because skirmishes escalate so wonderfully stupidly quickly in Helldivers 2. One minute, you're in tight formation, calmly pinging distant threats (a very useful feature), the next you're diving behind a rock to avoid a charging beetle, its chums burrowing up on all sides, your team scattered. Before the dust settles, someone saves an ally from certain death, someone goes down in a blaze of suicidal glory, and of course someone punches an airstrike command and lobs the targeting device without checking your position first.

Fighting fit

It's not any one element of Helldivers 2 that makes it sing, however. They all conspire together. With the enemies, the numbers are huge—with framerate drops very rare—closing in like xenomorphs nesting in a reactor, but also the specifics of each kind force you to react differently, making you run, stand firm or dive to the dirt, scatter grenades or whip out a shotgun for close encounters. You learn that the bigger, deadlier creatures and androids, which start popping up in about the fourth or fifth of the game's nine difficulty levels, have specific weak spots. Getting them in your sights is often a matter of using the terrain to your advantage or combining with a mate, one of you baiting the target while the other strikes from the rear.

Mission design, meanwhile, is involving and varied even at this early stage. From destroying bug nests or bot factories to grabbing soil samples or preparing the launching of an ICBM, objectives span multiple stages, which send you between traversing the sizeable maps to holding positions while stabbing inputs into terminals, manually moving machinery or waiting for processes to complete. Missions also offer multiple sub-objectives, tempting you to boost your XP and currency rewards, with the caveat that enemy forces increase the longer you stay planetside. Such decisions can balance your efforts on a knife edge.

The visuals and audio are spot on too. Each planet has a distinct personality—colour, natural cover, hazards, environmental features—while bugs are reliably disgusting and bots are as menacing as the Terminator influence implies. The sound is the star, though, from pitch perfect gunfire, reload clacks and explosions, to the chitter and squeal of insects, the perfectly-timed "Eat this!" and "For democracy!" barks of your team, and a score that's equal parts jingoistic and dramatic. It's almost a shame to turn on your microphones, although definitely advisable.

As for the service structure of the game, it doesn't feel intrusive yet and monetisation is limited to additional armour, helmets and capes. The end game appears to involve the entire player base collaborating to liberate a spiral of planets around Earth—sorry, Super Earth—with a handful accessible at a time. Each time you finish a mission the completion target on that planet ticks up by a ten thousandth of a percent, which is arguably the game's smartest piece of satire, showing you what your blood, sweat and tears are worth. When a count reaches 100%, which happened only once in the first week after launch, that planet becomes unavailable and new ones open up. Presumably, developer Arrowhead has a hand on the dial here, ensuring progress isn't too fast or slow.

Still, after 20 hours of play, a sense of grind did begin to kick in a little. The quantities of XP and currencies required to level up and grab more powerful stratagems, weapons and armour push you towards higher difficulty levels, which are tough to manage without well-organised and equipped teams. It can feel like a bit of a Catch 22, in which you need better gear to tackle their challenge, but it's difficult to get that gear until you do.

That said, there's no doubt progress has felt slower than it should in Helldivers 2 so far due to technical hitches. Losing your connection as you make that run for the dropship after a 30-minute mission is infuriating, as is arriving home to find you've not been awarded the points you'd earned. Arrowhead is clearly paying attention, at least, and that latter bug seems to have been squashed in the last couple of days. The biggest issue left at the time of writing is with accessing a quick match, which can take minutes of repeated trying and failing even though plenty of games are available. Indeed, the large number of people playing Helldivers 2 is apparently causing the problem by overloading the servers.

That's less of a concern of course if you have a team of friends ready to dive with, and despite the hiccups, those initial 20 hours have largely been joyous. The prospect of unlocking more planets and more spectacular toys to play with, plus a hundred more last-ditch sprints to the dropship, is far more enticing than the vast majority of live service propositions.

Sony engineers are being drafted into the Helldivers 2 server war effort, though Arrowhead's CEO says to 'get it later' if you're strapped for cash

Helldivers 2 patch 'tunes' those civilian extract missions that were murdering everyone as Arrowhead continues to manage login queues

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Final Fantasy VII Rebirth Review

A world worth fighting for..

Michael Higham Avatar

Standing on the edge of Midgar's expressway at the end of Final Fantasy VII Remake, the seemingly infinite possibilities of what could come next left me overwhelmed with a yearning I hadn't really felt from a game before – there was a whole world full of iconic moments awaiting modern revisions ahead, as well as whatever twists this now clearly diverging path might bring to them. In several ways, Final Fantasy VII Rebirth is my wildest imagination made manifest, simultaneously another stunning reconstruction of my childhood memories and an interesting (if sometimes a little messy) new interpretation of a story I've cherished since 1997.

Remake’s already impeccable blend of action and turn-based RPG combat has been made fresh again with new mechanics and party members, and revamping the way the original overworld worked by splitting it into sprawling open regions full of enjoyable optional activities enriches places I thought I knew so well. There's a magic to doing all this with characters I love so much too, as their personal stories and pivotal moments have a new grandeur to them. However, Rebirth’s sweeping ambition to create a new timeline for Final Fantasy VII bounces between being absolutely sublime and too convoluted for its own good. That’s left me conflicted about parts of the execution of that new direction – but after spending more than 80 hours to finish the main story and a decent chunk of side content, there's no denying that Rebirth is an amazing journey despite that, and one I'll remember fondly as I eagerly anticipate the third act of this rebuilt Final Fantasy VII.

A major part of what makes that journey special is its impressive scale. As soon as I set foot onto the Grasslands, the first of six regions that make up Rebirth, a sense of awe washed over me. Looking out over the far-reaching horizon or seeing a backdrop of vast and distant mountain ranges, I was stunned by how gorgeously the previously low-poly world of Final Fantasy VII had been reimagined. An early cutscene shows Aerith taking in the beauty of a natural world she was never able to see before, only to have Red XIII remind her that it's still dying from the inside out. In doing so, the story reinforces the ongoing theme of environmental preservation from the outset, and instills that this is a planet worth fighting for. That's a feeling that consistently surfaced as I went from region to region, connecting with the people of each one and helping with their struggles through both the main story and a huge amount of sidequests.

However, that wonder also came with some intimidation as I pulled up the world map, realizing how massive Rebirth was going to be – and that it has embraced many modern open-world design conventions. The nerdy researcher boy Chadley returns in a big way, acting as your liaison for most of the optional activities under the guise of furthering his scientific research, which includes activating towers spread throughout each region to mark tasks on your map. As familiar as that task is, Rebirth manages to transcend the negative connotations of this well-worn trope – the more I began to peel back the layers of all the activities that fill these zones, the more engrossed I got in clearing every icon I could from the map. That context made it more than just a checklist of chores.

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There's also something powerful in simply exploring each corner of these regions just to see how they've clung onto life in spite of the destructive effect of the relentless reliance on Mako energy. Scaling a cliff in Junon on my way to a side objective comes with the treat of a breathtaking but tainted view, such as the sunset splashing the desolate region with a cozy orange tint while the city's massive cannon looms in the background. You can see the contrast of Costa Del Sol's vibrant beachside next to the barren wasteland of Corel – a consequence of the iconic Gold Saucer's energy demand. Exploration in Rebirth evokes a similar feeling to one I had with Xenoblade Chronicles 3, where the sheer scope and spectacle of their respective worlds drew me into uncovering all they had to offer. Wondrous sights like these are their own little rewards.

Later areas in Rebirth change up how you move around them with unique abilities for your rideable chocobo. Bouncing off launchpad mushrooms to get around Gongaga's labyrinthine jungle and chaining boost pads to stay airborne in Cosmo Canyon started out cute, but eventually became more tedious than necessary. Rebirth also loves to make you climb cliffsides or swing across gaps with a grappling hook, Uncharted-style, which don't feel as fluid as they ought to be, though the sense of adventure these actions provide at least makes them tolerable.

Whether you’re tracking down Lifesprings to learn more about the region, fighting uniquely tough enemies in the wild while fulfilling specific battle conditions, or chasing down Protorelics for bespoke side stories, everything you do feeds into one gameplay system or another. For example, Lifesprings can unveil Divine Intel locations which can make the battles to unlock new Summons easier, or they can reveal the objective of an ongoing sidequest that didn't seem connected at first blush. Not all of the optional tasks are terribly exciting (like digging up treasure with your chocobo or doing silly timing-based inputs to activate Summon shrines) but the rewards are a decent enough incentive to at least prevent them from feeling like outright filler.

Who are you definitely keeping in your party at all times?

Sidequests pop up at every major town's Community Noticeboard, and they paint a more complete picture of Rebirth's vision for its reimagined open world. A certain party member is typically tied to each individual sidequest, so you'll get to see a side of them you wouldn't be able to otherwise, and also increase their Bond level in the process (a new feature that’s mainly relevant in a later part of the story I won’t get into here). These are more than mere fetch quests, instead featuring multiple objectives that take you across regions and encourage exploration, and they often tell their own compelling little stories or uplift the human element of Final Fantasy VII. Some of the later sidequests even provide context that's almost essential in order to fully understand the world and a few supporting characters as well.

Regardless of which tasks you take on, you'll be rewarded with XP for your Party Level, a separate progression system that advances your access to Folios. You can think of Folios as a system like Final Fantasy X ’s Sphere Grid, where you spend a pool of skill points to unlock new perks and abilities for each character. The biggest addition within Folios are Synergy Abilities, powerful partner attacks between specific characters that lay on heavy damage and can grant bonuses like extending stagger windows, filling the Limit Break bar, or temporarily negating all MP costs. You'll also access Synergy Skills that can be used on the fly to make combat more flexible, such as having Cloud launch Tifa into the air to get into melee range of flying enemies, or letting Barret soak up incoming damage for Aerith. Synergies are yet another tool in a bag full of tricks that complements the already intricate combat from Remake – and instead of bloating what's already quite a busy system, they work to fill gaps and reward you for expending ATB bars, making the combat loop feel more complete.

The returning Pressure and Stagger systems once again push you toward understanding combat on a deeper level, since bosses and strong enemies won't go down through simple button mashing. Like in Remake, using the Assess ability reveals how you can exploit enemy vulnerabilities outside of their elemental weaknesses (if they even have any). That makes both the tactical foresight to line up an offensive push at just the right time and the skill necessary to execute it imperative. When it all comes together and you're firing off Limit Breaks, chunky weapon skills, and cinematic Synergy Abilities against a staggered formidable foe, it's undeniably satisfying – not just because of the weight behind each hit, but also in the gratification of having orchestrated it all under the pressure of aggressive and sometimes unforgiving enemies.

As was the case in Remake, each character has a distinct fighting style, with Cloud, Tifa, Barret, and Aerith functioning just as they did before. But with new enemies and additional mechanics layered on, Rebirth pushes you to bring out the best in your party members. Yuffie plays like she did in Remake’s Intergrade DLC and can be an absolute menace by covering all elements with Ninjutsu, cloning herself to multiply the impact of every action, and having the best mobility of anyone in the party. Now with a full party around her and a full game to build on her skillset, she stands out as the most dynamic of the bunch. The finally playable Red XIII brings something different to the table by turning defense into offense with his Vengeance stance, yet it's his fast combos and absolutely destructive Stardust Ray that make short work of enemies. No matter your party composition, switching between them on the fly while setting the others up to play their parts offers a constant variety in both the moment-to-moment action and the satisfaction of playing the field general.

The depth of how all of these combat systems interconnect can be overwhelming, but it’s incredibly rewarding when you start to unravel their intricacies and put them together in battle. Much of that comes from the returning Materia system, which lets you customize each party member's build to fill certain roles with magic spells, stat boosts, and passive skills. While it's largely the same as before, it's no worse for wear because of just how smart it is, providing a level of flexibility that has a dramatic effect on how everyone functions. Along with Synergies unlocked in Folios, the multitude of weapon skills earned throughout the journey, and powerful Summons that can turn the tide of any fight, Rebirth's combat offers an embarrassment of riches without making you too overpowered when it really counts.

Important encounters can get extremely challenging even with all the tools you have – bosses push you to really work for your victory with how much they throw at you, and that level of effort is crucial for making combat so satisfying. You're expected to juggle their onslaught while trying to build ATB and exploit their specific vulnerabilities. However, at times, it did feel as though the way some of these tougher enemies were designed betrayed the principles of the combat system itself, as if there's a dissonance between how your party functions and what the enemy is capable of doing. Certain foes zip around the battlefield at high speeds that even the lock-on system has trouble tracking in a way that doesn’t feel intentional, and getting constantly knocked back or caught in multi-hit combos is an occasional annoyance. It's obnoxious at best and actively frustrating at worst when an attack like this interrupts a spell and your ATB bar has already been burned, adding insult to injury. Thankfully, these exasperating moments don't overshadow the heights Rebirth reaches – with enough practice, preparation, and wits, even the hardest battles are a surmountable thrill to conquer.

While the larger story Rebirth tells is a heart wrenching and compelling one, it does take a while for it to initially come into focus. After opening with the hard-hitting flashback of the tragedy at Cloud and Tifa's hometown of Nibelheim, you'll spend a lot of time getting acquainted with the flow of the open regions as you follow a chain of events that’s familiar from the 1997 original. But by frontloading a lot of those diversions, it can lose the thread of what Cloud and the gang were even supposed to be doing in the first place. From Junon to Costa del Sol, you'll be spending more time in minigames than anything else, and that's all before getting to the Gold Saucer, which is the capital of minigames. Don't get me wrong, many of these activities are a joy in their own right, and a few of them make for memorable moments of levity. But a little bit of restraint could have helped keep the focus on the parts I cared about most.

It seems like nitpicking, but that’s especially true with things such as slow-paced crate-moving puzzles, stealth sections to unlock a region's chocobo, or the box-throwing microgames with Cait Sith in later chapters. That all said, these are ultimately minor inconveniences in what is largely a fantastic revision of Final Fantasy VII’s story. If anything, the more robust minigames capture just how absolutely goofy the PS1 classic always was, livening up the adventure while still staying true to its identity.

Every IGN Final Fantasy Game Review

IGN has published more than 90 different Final Fantasy reviews over the last two and a half decades since 1997's Final Fantasy VII, and we've rounded each one up into this handy slideshow.

Rebirth manages to strike that delicate balance well, which is impressive given there was always a darkness and sorrow that permeated Final Fantasy VII, with the planet's very existence at risk, Shinra's destructive nature, and Sephiroth's calamitous ambitions looming. Cloud himself is a broken man, an unreliable narrator, and a complicated protagonist – and in the highest fidelity of modern tech, his slight but telling mannerisms speak as loud as anything he said in the original script. Nearly every party member has their moment to shine in this arc of Final Fantasy VII, and through impeccable cinematic stylings and top-tier voice performances, the cast's teetering between hope and despair is on full display. Barret's backstory was already unforgettable, but between the raw, emotional performance of voice actor John Eric Bentley and the graphical prowess of today's hardware, there's a newfound authenticity to the struggles he faces and painful resolutions that await him. Those modern qualities, along with a reimagined script, also give additional depth to Red XIII to round him out as a more complete character.

All the while, Aerith becomes an emotional leader and the relationship between her and Tifa grows stronger and more believable as they confide in each other and bear the brunt of Cloud's baggage. Rebirth is often cheesy in its writing and revels in its melodrama, but that's part of its charm. Within the cloying displays of friendship and theatrical pleas to protect the environment are undeniably genuine messages about how we carry ourselves in our own lives. That tone is what lets this particular brand of storytelling strike a chord as effectively as it does, elevating Rebirth above many of its contemporaries.

The concept of rebuilding Final Fantasy VII’s story for a new generation came with the theme of defying your supposed fate, which was made explicit toward the end of Remake with the convergence of alternate timelines affecting each other. It took me a while to come around on this idea, and although the mechanisms that turn the wheels of fate in Rebirth are as obtuse as they've ever been, it's a direction I've wanted to embrace. But while this new-ish story has the potential to be equally as powerful as the original, it pains me to say that Rebirth fumbles the execution. Avoiding any spoilers, the events of its conclusion and the ensuing aftermath are portrayed in a way that is both convoluted and undefined, robbing it of its impact. It's a case of trying to do too much without the connective tissue to bring it all together. Cryptic messages and nuanced meanings can be well and good, but sometimes stories also have to speak plainly about what is actually happening, and Rebirth does not when it needs to most.

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Even with the baffling delivery of its conclusion, some of the new scenes surrounding that finale do offer sobering messages about grief, letting go, and the acceptance of life's inevitable end – and sometimes that also means finding something worth fighting for. These quiet moments encourage a different kind of reflection that the original wasn't able to touch on. How we make sense of our lives and our place in a world full of tragedy is a complicated and messy endeavor that seems full of contradictions, and Rebirth makes that fittingly clear. So even though the new path these remakes are trying to forge is both fascinating and flawed, Final Fantasy VII’s story still manages to hold a poignant mirror up to our own world, 27 years later.

Final Fantasy VII Rebirth impressively builds off of what Remake set in motion as both a best-in-class action-RPG full of exciting challenge and depth, and as an awe-inspiring recreation of a world that has meant so much to so many for so long. After 82 hours to finish the main story and complete a decent chunk of sidequests and optional activities, there's still much to be done, making this pivotal section of the original feel absolutely massive. Minigames, sidequests, and other enticing diversions fill the spaces of its vast and sprawling regions, painting a new and more vivid picture of these familiar locations. But more than just being filled with things to do, Rebirth is often a powerful representation of Final Fantasy VII's most memorable qualities. It does fumble the execution of its ending, getting caught up in the mess of its multiple twisting timelines, but new moments and the overarching journey manage to evoke a deeper sense of reflection in spite of that. So, for as flawed as parts of how this classic has been reimagined might be, Rebirth still stands out as something both thrilling and unexpectedly impactful.

Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth Review

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Pacific Drive review: the car's the star in this atmospheric yet unwieldy survival game

Hard driving

Playing Pacific Drive reminds me of an army recruitment advert shown on British TV about 20 years ago. A group of soldiers are travelling along a road at night in a Land Rover, when suddenly they spot the enemy ahead. The front seat passenger starts barking orders at the driver: “Get off the road! Kill the lights! Through the trees!”. You sense the panic as the camera, inside the vehicle, jolts with the suspension on the rough ground, and the driver fights the steering wheel to stay in control. It’s a scene you reenact quite frequently in Ironwood’s survival game with roguelike trimmings. Well, except, instead of a Land Rover you’re behind the wheel of a rusty station wagon, and instead of military opposition, you’re scarpering from paranormal phenomena.

As far as I’m concerned, though, those phenomena make a positive change, as they are as fascinating as they are dangerous. While not extra-terrestrial, but ‘anomalies’ resulting from some top secret research in this abandoned region of the US, they could well have been extracted from an Area 51 conspiracy discussion board – green clouds of radioactive dust, glowing pink fungal growths, wobbly UFOs, turbo-charged scrap metal tumbleweeds, and plenty more. Some send the systems in your car haywire, others fry you with electricity, another launches you skyward to land with a bone-jarring thump. Couple this with natural hazards such as fallen boulders and trees, and you’re always ready to swerve off the verge, or barrel blindly into roadside shrubbery.

Mysterious orbs dot a rickety car in Pacific Drive.

I say blindly because it’s dark more often than it’s light, and because your default headlights – when they aren’t already smashed – are about as luminescent as a candelabra. So when you’re trying to outpace a radiation or acid storm, there’s always a chance you’ll get beached on debris or end up rolling down a muddy slope after gambling on a cross-country sprint. But you do it anyway, as sure as if a sergeant was sitting next to you yelling “Get off the road!” because it’s one heck of a ride. That, in part, is because the car’s fragility is so expertly conveyed – the way it slides and grips, bounces with loose suspension, chassis screaming, dashboard lights panicking, straining under extreme pressure. And never is it tested more than the finale of a mission, when you beeline to a teleporter beam chased by a deadly energy, praying your ailing metal box keeps ploughing forward.

Where the army ad ends on such high notes, though, Pacific Drive's sprint finishes don't. In quiet moments on the road or back at your workshop after a run, you have to undo the damage that results from driving a barely roadworthy vehicle barely on the road. What comes next is the painstaking process of fixing, sealing, refilling and replacing to suture all the injuries incurred.

As you might expect, this is less exciting, but such downtime is not unwelcome, especially mid-journey. Each trip you make into the sealed off exclusion zone is divided into maps you travel across and around. These square areas are dotted with buildings where you can snaffle resources, skeletal vehicles you can grind up for materials or relieve of any remaining fuel, plus a surprising amount of other old stuff that can be chipped and hammered into its constituent parts. But between foraging and close encounters, you make running repairs, as tires burst and doors crumple, threatening to fall off their hinges, and it’s easy to get absorbed in this work. With nothing but occasional radio contact with a few NPCs for company, the driver-car bond is Pacific Drive’s core character relationship: you look after it and it looks after you. Just be careful not to bang your head when you close the boot.

Customising the car in Pacific Drive's garage.

Despite how well the premise of driving and surviving alone is realised in Pacific Drive, however, it’s also often a bit fiddly, long-winded and even a touch mean-spirited. More than anything, perhaps, it could do with extra shortcuts, both on the road and in the garage, to keep its qualities front and centre without bogging itself down. Compared to something like Forever Skies – a similar core concept in a different shape – its loop is over-stretched and lacks self-reinforcing momentum.

Let me tell you about repair putty, for example. After each trip into the wilderness, your car usually returns in a sorry state, for which the primary solution is this common craftable item. But one of the ingredients for repair putty is chemicals, and chemicals aren’t common at all. Around your workshop there’s a self-refreshing supply of other raw materials – metal, rubber, wiring – ensuring you can craft essentials, but no stock of chemicals, so you often have to build new doors for your vehicle rather than mend the ones you've got. Then, when you do get your hands on putty, it’s incredibly slow to use. You stand in front of a panel or door. Hold the button for a couple of seconds. Watch the scrape and slather animation play out. Move to the next plane of bodywork. Repeat. The routine soon wears as thin as the supply of chemicals.

I generally like when games recreate little processes of manual labour, such as the machinic operations in Far: Lone Sails or making coffee in Mundaun . I like some such details here too, like turning the ignition key and flicking the gear stick from park to drive and then back when the car's stopped (the car will roll away if you forget). But when little processes add up to spending 20 minutes preparing for a journey, and the controls for tinkering are overly fussy, I lose my enthusiasm. It’s worse as well if you fail to return from a trip safely, like a dose of extra punishment as you lose almost everything you collected, then have to rebuild virtually from scratch (mercifully, some assist options can help reduce the tedium).

A dashboard view of a pillar of light in Pacific Drive.

Garage time in Pacific Drive could be the perfect comedown after a bruising journey if it was all about crafting new inventions and experimenting with setups, but in practice it’s more akin to leaving for a holiday – double-checking you’ve packed everything, filled up the petrol and asked the neighbour to feed the cat (OK, not the last one). Upgrades that actually make life easier or more entertaining, like a pulse that violently repels sticky adversaries, require masses of resources to blueprint and build, and even then they might get broken, which often limits your construction efforts after a run to making slightly stronger panelling and more robust tyres instead. You can spend an hour on the road, only to pour much of your haul into putting your car back to how it was before you set out.

That hour or so on the road is a bit much too, especially since there’s no way to even save and quit when you’re out there. Few maps can be crossed quickly, plus if you want to come back well-stocked, you park frequently to forage, and if you want to stay healthy, you take detours around the gnarliest hazards. While the layouts of locations change each time, once you’re deep into the game and have to drive four maps to reach the next key objective, there’s not enough variety to make you appreciate the sights all over again. Even more galling is when you complete a distant objective but don’t reach the teleporter beam in time, and have to repeat the whole trip.

All of which is to say that while Pacific Drive has trunk loads of atmosphere, a powerfully engaging premise, and simulates the feel of driving a quirky old machine in admirable detail, it’s all locked into a laborious framework. For all those “Get off the road!” moments, the processes of gathering, crafting and advancing through its story are fraught with irritating potholes and diversions. With all the repetition of mundane tasks, I imagine it’s closer to the reality of being in the army than that old advert ever was.

This review is based on a review build of the game provided by publishers Kepler Interactive.

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IMAGES

  1. Embargo (Definition, Types)

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  2. Embargo: Definition, Examples, and Effects

    what is a review embargo

  3. Embargo

    what is a review embargo

  4. Types of Embargoes with examples

    what is a review embargo

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