10 Ways You Can Tell A Video Game Is Going To Suck

Now, there are certainly periodic exceptions to this rule, but by and large if a game has a late embargo - that is, the day before release or even day of release - it's probably going to be the absolute pits.

Yes, 2016's Doom and the recent The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom are both outliers, but more often than not, a last-minute embargo suggests the publisher has little faith in the game and believes that reviews will dent its commercial prospects.

Some more infamous recent examples include The Callisto Protocol, which despite considerable hype didn't lift the embargo until release day, where it debuted to aggressively mediocre reviews.

And most recently we have The Lord of the Rings: Gollum, which held reviews until release day, as unsurprisingly turned out to be almost universally negative.

It's always encouraging when reviews drop a week or two before release - it demonstrates confidence in what's been cooked up, while the opposite in the very least makes potential customers suspicious about what's being held back.