After the review embargo lifted a few days ago for Rememdy Entertainment’s highly anticipated Quantum Break, reviews for the Xbox One version started pouring in. You’d be forgiven for thinking that the game has been poorly received across the board, because that’s how the denizens of the internet have chosen to perceive it – in actual fact, the majority of reviewers deem Quantum Break as an incredible game, with most scores landing well above average.
Quantum Break is currently sitting on 78/100 on Metacritic, based on 72 reviews. That’s a pretty great score in the grand scheme of things (given that 78 is an average, there would have to be scores higher than that mixed with scores lower).
But in order to really look at how well Quantum Break is performing so far, we have to look at a couple of key factors:
- What’s an ‘average’ or ‘above average’ score?
- What other games are scoring around the same mark, and are they good or bad?
- If 78/100 is the average score, what are the individual review scores, and how good are they?
Let’s answer these questions, and determine whether Quantum Break is performing well in critics’ opinions, or if it’s flopping, like the internet seems to think.
What Determines an ‘Above Average’ Score?
In a world where reviews are completely based on the reviewer’s opinion (even though publications strive to remain as objective as possible), it’s tough to determine what an ‘average’ score is for a video game.
In school and college tests, we’re taught that 50% is equal to a pass – from this, we can infer that games scoring 4/10 and lower have issues on a fundamental level that shouldn’t be present in a polished game.
Looking at Metacritic’s list of games scoring lower than 49/100, we can back up this claim – games populating the list include Alex Rider: Stormbreaker, Sonic Adventure, Michael Phelps: Push the Limit, Amazons and Aliens, and so on.
That’s not to say that a game is defined by the review score it receives; rather, it gives a rough indication of whether or not that game is worth playing, which itself is always under influence from a number of external factors (age, personal preference, genre, etc).
From this, we can determine that an ‘above average’ score could equal between 6-8/10, ranging from ‘good’ to ‘great’.
What other Games are Scoring the same as Quantum Break?
Given that video game reviews and the scores awarded are subjective experiences, it’s only fair to look at Quantum Break’s review score in context.
Taking a look at Metacritic for reference, other games that scored 78/100 include:
- Star Wars: Battlefront II
- The Walking Dead: Season Two Episode One
- LEGO Indiana Jones
- Dynasty Warriors 3
- Alien: Isolation
- League of Legends
- Tom Clancy’s The Division
- Tom Clancy’s Rainbow Six: Vegas 2
- Condemned: Criminal Origins
- Call of Duty 2: Big Red One
- Star Wars: Republic Commando
- Max Payne
- Plants vs Zombies: Garden Warfare
- Castlevania
- Amped: Freestyle Snowboarding
While there are some games on the list that scored the same but don’t hold as high regard in user opinions (such as a few Call of Duty titles, Watch Dogs, Disney Infinity 3.0, Greed Corp, and so on).
Once again, it’s worth stressing that these scores are subjective – but it does give us a rough idea of the kind of games that reviewers find to be of similar quality, based on their average score.
Now that we have an idea of the types of games scoring on a similar scale to Quantum Break, let’s have a look at the individual scores that Metacritic took into account.
The Reviews Behind Quantum Break’s Metacritic Score
The graph below shows:
- Review scores in increments of 10 (x-axis)
- The number of reviews that gave that score (y-axis)
Of the 72 reviews counted in Metacritic’s average rating of 78/100, we found the following:
- Only 2 reviews scored the game lower than 5/10 (Time and Giant Bomb both scored Quantum Break 4/10); the rest of the reviews scored between 6/10 and 10/10.
- The most commonly awarded scores landed between 81-90/100 (based on 27 reviews)
- More reviewers (5) thought that Quantum Break is worth a 91-100/100 score than those that thought it was worth 40/100. 2 gave it a perfect 100/100 (Digital Spy and IGN Sweden)
Overall, the data above shows that Quantum Break is reviewing well above average, with the majority of reviewers classifying it as a great game at an 8 or 9 out of 10.
While the only way to really experience Quantum Break is to try it yourself upon release, it’s worth taking into account that the game doesn’t appear to be nearly as bad as corners of the internet is making it out to be.