ELDEN RING
analyzed 2026-08-14 · sample of 702 English reviews across the whole review history
Players consistently praise the game's world and exploration, with reviews describing "exploring the world that just kept expanding" and an "INCREDIBLY expansive world is teeming with secrets." Combat and gameplay are also frequent positives, with players calling the "combat is very fun and challenging" and noting the game is "everything Dark Souls games did well." Build variety, graphics, lore, and addictiveness are mentioned almost entirely in positive terms, with players citing "tons of builds to try out" and "hours upon hours of hidden lore." The most significant criticism centers on technical performance. Reviews mention "PC performance issues are probably overblown, but certainly present," along with crashes, white screens, and connection problems. Platform access is uniformly negative, with complaints about black bars and an inability to disable online mode. Players also criticize the learning curve, noting "the game really does a terrible job at explaining how everything works," and some find the endgame poorly balanced, describing "endless hordes of instant kill hyper-mode gods." Controls, UI, and stability are also consistently flagged as weak points. Opinion splits appear around difficulty, which draws both praise and frustration, and level design, where some areas are called "horribly designed." Multiplayer is divisive, with some enjoying it and others finding it "completely barebones." Recurring player complaints include the camera and the grind, with one review noting "they intended grinding to be a crucial element of this game."
quotes copied verbatim from reviews · plain text is the language model's own wording
Aspects
share of sample, axis to 20% · ± is the sampling uncertainty around each share
- positive
- mixed / neutral
- negative
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difficulty
56 positive · 35 negative · 8 mixed · 0 neutral
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game hard
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Loved every second of it, though I can definitely say it's one of the hardest Souls games out there.
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And I am still terrible at all of these games but love them to death.
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gameplay
48 positive · 5 negative · 5 mixed · 1 neutral
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it quickly became my all-time favorite game when playing it, and it shows just how far and well refined the formula had become in the souls series.
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It's everything Dark Souls games did well, with several things removed that they did bad.
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This game is 10/10 amazing.
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combat
35 positive · 7 negative · 8 mixed · 0 neutral
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all the bosses, collecting the items and exploring the world that just kept expanding felt both fresh and innovative, yet also incredibly familiar.
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The combat, the exploration, the build potential, the visuals, everything is incredible.
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If you want a game with challenge, hours upon hours of hidden lore, and some amazing graphics with sick weapons.
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world
33 positive · 3 negative · 2 mixed · 0 neutral
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all the bosses, collecting the items and exploring the world that just kept expanding felt both fresh and innovative, yet also incredibly familiar.
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I can look over that pretty easily with this game world building and immersive.
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The world is so beautiful and off in all the right ways.
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exploration
27 positive · 2 negative · 1 mixed · 0 neutral
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all the bosses, collecting the items and exploring the world that just kept expanding felt both fresh and innovative, yet also incredibly familiar.
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This INCREDIBLY expansive world is teeming with secrets, incredible adversaries, stories and hardship.
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While it still has the odd bug or two, its depth is massive and if you take the time to explore everything, you can have an 100 hour playthrough, or if you just wanna run to the end, you could do it in a few days.
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content amount
20 positive · 8 negative · 0 mixed · 0 neutral
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SOOO Much Content
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Great game plenty of in-game content to keep you busy
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Its also an actually complete game on launch, which is a rare commodity these days.
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performance
3 positive · 21 negative · 0 mixed · 0 neutral
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Then it tells me my FPS is too low to enter the online mode (I'm using 3060), yet it doesn't give me the option to go into the menu to disable online mode, just keep telling me my FPS is too low.
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Fix framerate pls
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There are some real performance issues with the game especially in the open world area, game stutters and lags which had lead to a few annoying deaths, I imagine those will be fixed in time so I wont harp on those too much
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level design
8 positive · 11 negative · 2 mixed · 0 neutral
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Also, some bosses and areas are horribly designed and near impossible to complete without a certain build.
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The only dislikes that I can think of are mainly down to a lack of skill rather than something that the game has done (except that one particular falling puzzle that I lost 3 hours to).
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[*] Second phase of the final boss fight is just.. boring.
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build variety
17 positive · 1 negative · 1 mixed · 0 neutral
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The combat, the exploration, the build potential, the visuals, everything is incredible.
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Exploration is rewarding, boss fights are amazing, and tons of builds to try out.
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Potentially the most build diversity in FromSoft's library.
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graphics
18 positive · 1 negative · 0 mixed · 0 neutral
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The combat, the exploration, the build potential, the visuals, everything is incredible.
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If you want a game with challenge, hours upon hours of hidden lore, and some amazing graphics with sick weapons.
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great looking, plays really well, theres no shame in running away, be ready to die no matter how good you think you are.
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see more
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replayability
16 positive · 3 negative · 0 mixed · 0 neutral
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I can see myself coming back to play this game every now and then years after this, first time i can say with confidence that this game is WORTH pre-ordering.
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And even then I still want to play more.
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Tons of replay, different endings and secrets to uncover.
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learning curve
6 positive · 8 negative · 1 mixed · 1 neutral
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And the game really does a terrible job at explaining how everything works, so if you're like me and have no prior experience with Souls games - Google is your pal.
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This game is incredibly confusing, the storyline is hard to follow and expects the player to do random things at random times and know things you shouldnt.
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There's no tutorial to help you get acquainted with the controls and you are woefully unprepared when your first boss keeps rushing you without letting you get your feet wet.
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multiplayer
7 positive · 8 negative · 0 mixed · 0 neutral
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u need to make where it easy to play with firend
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fix multiplayer.
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just too much grinding, the multiplayer is completely barebones and barely allows you to actually play w/ your friends, wouldnt recommend throwing $60 at it
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story
11 positive · 4 negative · 0 mixed · 0 neutral
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The lore is engrossing and the narrative is intricately woven into every aspect of the game (minus the sometimes annoying quest progression but that's something of a package deal with From Software titles).
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Great game, beautiful story and immersive world filled with things you love and things that will inevitably make you want to kill yourself.
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… ever played, almost quit 2 times but came back after a few days with new motivation to overcome the boss that held me back, beautiful world and stories, and one of the games worth the full triple AAA price, its not exactly easy but if you really want to, you can make it so (just search on …
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addictiveness
13 positive · 0 negative · 0 mixed · 0 neutral
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It's been a long time since I've been this addicted to a game.
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keeps you involved from start to finish.
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A masterpiece from start to finish; I couldn't stop playing.
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balance
2 positive · 10 negative · 1 mixed · 0 neutral
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Where in previous titles you were often confronted with a challenging but fair enemy, you are now presented with endless hordes of instant kill hyper-mode gods, often popping up out of thin air with no indication of what you're walking into.
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Endgame has massive balance problems, resulting in the last 10-20 hours potentially being the worst experience of any FromSoft game to date.
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Having said that, as the game goes by, say 90 hours in the late areas of the game, the artificial difficulty starts to kick in: normal enemies do twice as much damage, bosses can one shot you for no discernible reason (even if you rock some heavy armor and some high vigor and amulets) all of …
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progression
4 positive · 8 negative · 0 mixed · 0 neutral
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It's also really clear that they intended grinding to be a crucial element of this game.
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NG+ is pointless, scaling is horrid and might as well be god mode.
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Pause doesn't work, black bars cover the sides of the screen, and there's no real RPG elements.
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controls
2 positive · 9 negative · 0 mixed · 0 neutral
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AND my elite controller doesn't work in the game.
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Keyboard and mouse play is a complete afterthought.
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The key bindings on PC are complete ♥♥♥♥♥.
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platform access
0 positive · 11 negative · 0 mixed · 0 neutral
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Then it tells me my FPS is too low to enter the online mode (I'm using 3060), yet it doesn't give me the option to go into the menu to disable online mode, just keep telling me my FPS is too low.
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PC port is god awful
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Pause doesn't work, black bars cover the sides of the screen, and there's no real RPG elements.
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quest design
4 positive · 6 negative · 1 mixed · 0 neutral
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This game is incredibly confusing, the storyline is hard to follow and expects the player to do random things at random times and know things you shouldnt.
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The lore is engrossing and the narrative is intricately woven into every aspect of the game (minus the sometimes annoying quest progression but that's something of a package deal with From Software titles).
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I don't think the story is even slightly good, at least as far as presentation, and most of the quests do a really bad job of getting you attached to characters or even allowing you to understand what's going on at all, but that is overshadowed by the fact that the …
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dlc
5 positive · 4 negative · 0 mixed · 1 neutral
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I'm excited to see what DLC opportunities arise for this title, Ringed City and Old Hunters were absolutely stellar expansions.
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I will happily pay for DLC when they have it ready to go.
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I can't wait for the eventual DLC.
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lore
10 positive · 0 negative · 0 mixed · 0 neutral
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If you want a game with challenge, hours upon hours of hidden lore, and some amazing graphics with sick weapons.
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The lore is engrossing and the narrative is intricately woven into every aspect of the game (minus the sometimes annoying quest progression but that's something of a package deal with From Software titles).
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[*] The lore and story are great and delivered in a much better way than previous games.
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music
8 positive · 1 negative · 1 mixed · 0 neutral
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The game is some of the most fun I have had in Video-Games for such a long time, the areas, the music, the enemies and bosses.
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The environments, music, and level design are top notch!
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The bosses are some of the best in video game history with gameplay and music to enhance the experience even further.
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bugs
1 positive · 8 negative · 0 mixed · 0 neutral
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While it still has the odd bug or two, its depth is massive and if you take the time to explore everything, you can have an 100 hour playthrough, or if you just wanna run to the end, you could do it in a few days.
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There are some bugs in the game play that are annoying but the combat is great.
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Only complaints would be same old dark souls problems: getting destroyed by camera and attacks sometimes clipping you through terrain/objects.
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stability
0 positive · 9 negative · 0 mixed · 0 neutral
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Still getting a white screen, still checking for new workarounds, still being disappointed.
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Glitchy at times, optimization needs work, and online can be iffy.
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The game Crashes more than cyberpunk 2077 on its release.
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art style
8 positive · 0 negative · 0 mixed · 0 neutral
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Aesthetics are amazing.
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Slowly combing my way through the world and taking in the great art direction and atmosphere felt phenomenal.
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Nice Graphics, lovecraftian visuals, High Fantasy, amazing Charakters and Bosses
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characters
6 positive · 2 negative · 0 mixed · 0 neutral
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+++Scenarios, exploring, side quests, characters are just top notch, had a blast finding their quests (and messing up some of them)
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Nice Graphics, lovecraftian visuals, High Fantasy, amazing Charakters and Bosses
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A very open world to explore, hundreds of different enemies, tens of great and unique boss fights, and a slew of wonderful NPCs to interact with, Elden Ring has set a new standard for what a fantasy/action rpg can and should be.
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game length
5 positive · 2 negative · 0 mixed · 1 neutral
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While it still has the odd bug or two, its depth is massive and if you take the time to explore everything, you can have an 100 hour playthrough, or if you just wanna run to the end, you could do it in a few days.
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very fun and time consuming game would recommend
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almost 200hours in and I've died about 2000 times
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servers netcode
0 positive · 8 negative · 0 mixed · 0 neutral
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The only thing I can complain about are the frame drops and connection errors.
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Also, Classic Dark Souls Netcode Errors!
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Other than a few minor connection issues that for myself personally have been intermittent, this game is another absolute gem from Bandai and Fromsoft would highly recommend playing this game
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ui
0 positive · 7 negative · 0 mixed · 0 neutral
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UI/UX is still abysmal after ten years of iteration.
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Pause doesn't work, black bars cover the sides of the screen, and there's no real RPG elements.
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Poor sense of direction and goal.
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community
4 positive · 2 negative · 0 mixed · 0 neutral
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There are tons of good guides if you make a little effort though.
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But should you prefer not to read item descriptions for hours on end, the community has done a good job theory-crafting and dissecting details big and small.
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Dungeon crawling, exploration, stimulating a sense of community, combat, etc.
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price value
5 positive · 0 negative · 0 mixed · 1 neutral
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Sooooooooooooooooooooooooo ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ incredible definitely worth it to bite the $60 bullet and get it.
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Best, complete, one price RPG since the Dragon Age franchise.
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… back after a few days with new motivation to overcome the boss that held me back, beautiful world and stories, and one of the games worth the full triple AAA price, its not exactly easy but if you really want to, you can make it so (just search on google).
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Emergent themes unvalidated
topics reviewers bring up that are not on the validated list; raw counts only, no error bars
- camera 5
- grind 5
Review timeline
monthly peak 210,541 reviews · all languages
monthly share rated positive · 50% reference · months with <5 reviews faded
the timeline as a table
| month | reviews | up | down | positive | note |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Feb 2022 | 95,267 | 70,204 | 25,063 | 74% | |
| Mar 2022 | 210,541 | 191,559 | 18,982 | 91% | |
| Apr 2022 | 53,028 | 48,837 | 4,191 | 92% | |
| May 2022 | 21,142 | 19,446 | 1,696 | 92% | |
| Jun 2022 | 12,737 | 11,680 | 1,057 | 92% | |
| Jul 2022 | 9,224 | 8,456 | 768 | 92% | |
| Aug 2022 | 8,297 | 7,598 | 699 | 92% | |
| Sep 2022 | 6,259 | 5,814 | 445 | 93% | |
| Oct 2022 | 5,819 | 5,414 | 405 | 93% | |
| Nov 2022 | 31,949 | 31,368 | 581 | 98% | |
| Dec 2022 | 15,478 | 14,346 | 1,132 | 93% | |
| Jan 2023 | 19,299 | 18,024 | 1,275 | 93% | |
| Feb 2023 | 10,933 | 10,303 | 630 | 94% | |
| Mar 2023 | 10,380 | 9,795 | 585 | 94% | |
| Apr 2023 | 6,650 | 6,201 | 449 | 93% | |
| May 2023 | 5,206 | 4,867 | 339 | 93% | |
| Jun 2023 | 5,094 | 4,772 | 322 | 94% | |
| Jul 2023 | 11,444 | 10,515 | 929 | 92% | |
| Aug 2023 | 7,239 | 6,776 | 463 | 94% | |
| Sep 2023 | 5,217 | 4,890 | 327 | 94% | |
| Oct 2023 | 9,904 | 9,084 | 820 | 92% | |
| Nov 2023 | 8,668 | 8,300 | 368 | 96% | |
| Dec 2023 | 9,759 | 9,025 | 734 | 92% | |
| Jan 2024 | 14,722 | 13,847 | 875 | 94% | |
| Feb 2024 | 11,283 | 10,657 | 626 | 94% | |
| Mar 2024 | 11,637 | 11,002 | 635 | 95% | |
| Apr 2024 | 7,313 | 6,904 | 409 | 94% | |
| May 2024 | 9,183 | 8,647 | 536 | 94% | |
| Jun 2024 | 41,765 | 36,714 | 5,051 | 88% | |
| Jul 2024 | 39,611 | 36,109 | 3,502 | 91% | |
| Aug 2024 | 14,426 | 13,340 | 1,086 | 92% | |
| Sep 2024 | 8,902 | 8,177 | 725 | 92% | |
| Oct 2024 | 7,378 | 6,089 | 1,289 | 83% | |
| Nov 2024 | 9,522 | 9,131 | 391 | 96% | |
| Dec 2024 | 10,546 | 9,826 | 720 | 93% | |
| Jan 2025 | 10,261 | 9,507 | 754 | 93% | |
| Feb 2025 | 6,539 | 6,063 | 476 | 93% | |
| Mar 2025 | 8,446 | 7,773 | 673 | 92% | |
| Apr 2025 | 6,013 | 5,539 | 474 | 92% | |
| May 2025 | 5,907 | 5,443 | 464 | 92% | |
| Jun 2025 | 6,793 | 6,213 | 580 | 91% | |
| Jul 2025 | 8,898 | 8,100 | 798 | 91% | |
| Aug 2025 | 5,735 | 5,299 | 436 | 92% | |
| Sep 2025 | 3,685 | 3,420 | 265 | 93% | |
| Oct 2025 | 3,388 | 3,148 | 240 | 93% | |
| Nov 2025 | 3,648 | 3,403 | 245 | 93% | |
| Dec 2025 | 5,554 | 5,085 | 469 | 92% | |
| Jan 2026 | 6,723 | 6,198 | 525 | 92% | |
| Feb 2026 | 4,269 | 3,937 | 332 | 92% | |
| Mar 2026 | 5,059 | 4,585 | 474 | 91% | |
| Apr 2026 | 4,816 | 4,447 | 369 | 92% | |
| May 2026 | 4,464 | 4,143 | 321 | 93% | |
| Jun 2026 | 4,305 | 4,008 | 297 | 93% | |
| Jul 2026 | 4,224 | 3,897 | 327 | 92% | |
| Aug 2026 | 1,710 | 1,564 | 146 | 91% |
How this report was made
- Population
- all Steam reviews of the game (every language, purchase type, and verdict), walked newest-first per window; only English-language reviews are analyzed
- Sample
- 702 English reviews, time-proportional draw over 55 windows (newest-first within each), taken from an all-language walk and kept English-only — where English is a minority the sample runs smaller than the draw, and every margin of error is computed at 702
- Aspect yield
- 264 of 702 analyzed reviews carry at least one aspect (37.6%); every share on this page divides by all 702
- Interval regime
- calm: standard margins of error for a share of a sample (Wilson interval), no widening needed
- Fetch paths
- 55 time windows fetched directly (windowed)
- Language mix
- 1,000 fetched: english 703 · brazilian 66 · spanish 57 · 18 more
- Steam-marked windows
- none flagged by Steam (Valve's off-topic flagging began March 2019)
- Marked share
- 0.0% of sample inside marked windows, under the 2% floor
- Narrative
- passed the grounding gate first try
- Evidence floor
- aspects and emergent themes appear only with 5+ supporting reviews; smaller counts sit at the classifier's false-positive floor
- Instrument readings
- measured once on the study corpus for this model and prompt: frozen calibration, not properties of this run
- · aspect tagging vs. human labels
- 0.766 [0.713–0.811] (F1 against a human-labeled test set; 1.0 is best)
- · quotes filed under the wrong aspect
- 11.6% [6.6–19.6] of quotes, measured by hand on a sample; lower is better
- · independent model vs. production labels
- 0.791 [0.772–0.810] (F1 of the production labeler against an independent judge model)
- Versions
- deepseek-v4-flash · prompt classify-v1 · ontology v2
- Run
- serve-20260814T020113Z-f804a8e7 · code 6bbb8aa
full methodology in the milestone write-ups