Where are Stevivor’s PlayStation first-party reviews?

Don't worry, they're coming.

If you’re reading this, you’re likely curious as to whether or not Stevivor will publish an [insert name of game here] PlayStation first-party review for its specific, timed embargo.

The answer is simple: our Sony PlayStation first-party reviews will not be released in any pre-launch window, and instead will become available in the period after a title has launched. To achieve this, Stevivor will access retail builds of first-party PlayStation titles.

Since the tail end of April 2022, Sony Interactive Entertainment Australia (PlayStation Australia) and its contracted PR agency Poem have only responded to two attempts at communication by Stevivor. One was to acknowledge an email sent about Horizon Forbidden West and the other stated that PlayStation Australia was “unable to accommodate” a request for Gran Turismo 7 review code.

Further emails asking for additional comment were ignored, phone calls either rang out or diverted to voicemail and were never returned, and text messages including an offer to connect PlayStation Australia with a contact other than myself were not replied to, apart from automated Android OS read receipts.

While this is clearly a situation I’d rather not be in — and one that I’m continuing to try and rectify — one thing is abundantly clear: I believe that PlayStation Australia does not wish to provide PlayStation first-party review code to anyone intending to write about it for Stevivor. The manner in which this has been communicated has been rather disappointing, but nonetheless is the company’s prerogative.

We pride ourselves on fair and honest reviews that centre around a reviewer’s experience with a title, expanding to factor in a consumer’s journey from purchase through to play. We certainly don’t review every single game ever created, but we try our best to write about those most in-demand; there’s certainly no denying that Sony PlayStation’s first-party titles fall into that category. As a result, we will cover PS4 and PS5 first-party titles in post-launch timeframes for the time being and will ensure our work is passed on to our aggregate partners when completed. One such example is our Gran Turismo 7 review; another is our The Last of Us Part 1 review. A God of War Ragnarok review has also been commissioned for later in November.

As per our long established policy on crunch, I personally pledge to provide writers as much time as they feel necessary to cover post-launch titles with the same quality as our other reviews. The only request I will make to commissioned reviewers in these circumstances is to avoid coverage from other outlets until after their own experiences are published.

We’ve been doing this nearly fifteen years now and don’t plan to stop any time soon.

This post was originally titled “Where is Stevivor’s Gran Turismo 7 review?” and was published on 2 March 2022.