Talk:Abiotic Factor/GA1: Difference between revisions

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Nominator: Quidama (talk · contribs) 15:10, 6 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Reviewer: PresN (talk · contribs) 14:59, 21 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Reviewing this. I do GAN reviews by listing out issues as I read through the article, rather than a checklist.

• Gameplay seems contradictory in a few places: players build a home base, but they also progress through the complex (do you make multiple bases? Do you return back home each night?). The plot is given by emails and audio logs, but also there are npcs like a regular rpg (so is the plot like a found footage thing, or are the logs background information?).
• Gameplay doesn’t really explain how combat works, or what improvised weapons are available; the image down in development raises a lot of questions that aren’t answered by the text. The aliens are “inspired by the SCP foundation”, but SCPs cover a wide variety of concepts, so that doesn’t really explain what the aliens are or look like.
• At 878 words, the Synopsis section is significantly over the recommended limit of 700 words
• Development has a lot of choppy 2-sentence paragraphs, and jumps forwards and backwards in time instead of starting with who made it and then concept and then moving into development
• It also doesn’t need to relate when/where the developers later gave talks or interviews about the development, or at least not center it as much
• Release is a little wonky; I don’t mind the bullets but it keeps jumping from “it was released on X date” to “here were the early access updates” to “the released date was announced after the 2nd update, and that 3rd update wasn’t an early access update at all but the update that was part of the full release”. It needs reorganized for flow.
• Reception is the big issue. It’s… missing. This game got shockingly few reviews for the sales/award noms, but a reviews box that has only one review is weird (add Game8 at minimum), and if you only have a few reviews to pull from, you have to pull deep, not just throw out one sentence with a review score (in fact, don’t include review scores in text, that’s what the box is for). Also, I would have been less surprised if the lede had mentioned that the game got few reviews but high sales, neither of which is mentioned right now.
• PCGamesN (which you cite as ref 6) talks about the planned DLC, and while it’s not a review it does say very nice things about the game and frankly this article needs every scrap of reception you can find
• I’m going to need justification for how gamediscover.co is a reliable source, especially one that can get sales numbers for a game (which is traditionally very difficult to get for any game). Same with The Alinea Insight newsletter and GAMECORES.
• Some of the sources used are listed at Wikipedia:WikiProject Video games/Sources as unreliable (e.g. TechRaptor, XboxEra)

Unfortunately, I am going to fail this nomination. Any one or a few of these issues I think would be fine to deal with during the review, but as a whole, in combination with the fact that the nominator has been absent for the past month or so, they indicate that the article needs significant work that is unlikely to happen quickly. —PresN 14:59, 21 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you, PresN. I agree that the Gameplay, Release and Synopsis sections will need some clean-up, clarification, and/or condensing. I was hoping to get feedback on these sections through the GAN process.

Regarding the game’s reception … it did indeed get very little critical attention. I agree that Game8 would fit well into the box; however, as far as I know, Template:Video game reviews does not currently support Game8 as a reviewer, nor allow for custom parameters. If you know of a workaround, I’d be happy to implement it.

I actually inquired about GameDiscoverCo on the WikiProject talk page here. Another editor considered the source as reliable given the author’s reputation as an established industry expert. I’m inclined to agree, but I’m open to removing Alinea and GAMECORES since they don’t meet the same standard.

You mentioned that TechRaptor is unreliable but the link you provided lists it as “inconclusive” with the latest discussion leaning more toward reliable than not. XboxEra is being used for a non-controversial statement and a review here, so I believed it was within policy, but I can find a replacement if necessary.

Lastly, I’m a bit confused about the outright fail decision. While I understand the concerns you raised, they seem like the kind of issues typically addressed within a GAN review rather than resulting in immediate failure. None of them seem particularly glaring or hard to fix. I’ve been away for less than a month but I am fully willing and able to work on revisions. Could you clarify why this was a factor in failing the nomination? quidama _talk 03:25, 23 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]

• Review outlets that don’t have explicit shortnames in the review box template can be added via e.g. | rev1 = XXX | rev1Score = Y/10.
• I’m willing to accept GameDiscoverCo based on the citations to it you posted there and Masem’s signoff.
• The linked discussion about TechRaptor ends with two editors calling it unreliable. I’m willing to give leeway to unreliable sources for interviews where it’s the developers’ words being cited, but XboxEra is, per the VGRS discussion, not much more than a discord group’s project, which leaves it as not an RS even for reviews.
• While some reviewers may leave GANs open/on hold no matter what issues are found, I don’t think that’s valid in this case- multiple sections have major issues that need to be fixed, which generally indicates that an article is not ready for a GA review and would be better served by letting the nominator take as much time as they need to fix things. GANs aren’t supposed to be hanging open for a long time. These aren’t “the kind of issues typically addressed within a GAN review”; I posted 3 other GA reviews this week, all of which were primarily focused on writing/grammar issues, with only a couple more substantive problems that could still be fixed in a short time period. I don’t think “half of this article needs a substantial rewrite, and a lot of the sources aren’t usable” is standard for a GA review. If you’re able to fix all of the problems in a short/reasonable time frame, I’m willing to re-review if you renominate the article – I’d be happy to be proven wrong – but as-is, it was below the bar I’d expect for placing a review on hold instead of failing it. —PresN 03:51, 23 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]

  My mistake on the TechRaptor link. I meant to link to this discussion. The sentence supported by TechRaptor is uncontroversial and is also backed by a PC Gamer article, so its inclusion is largely redundant rather than problematic. Similarly, the XboxEra citation supports a straightforward, non-contentious statement. Given that, I don’t believe it’s accurate to say that “a lot of the sources aren’t usable”.

  Regarding the mention of inactivity, I still don’t quite understand why that factored into the outcome of the review. It is entirely unrelated to the article. My intent in nominating the article was to improve it through the GAN process, and I remain committed to doing so.

  After reviewing the GA criteria for video game articles again, I respectfully disagree with the assessment that “half of this article needs a substantial rewrite”. I am re-nominating the article for another user to review. Thank you again for your feedback. quidama _talk 04:47, 23 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]