IGN gave Prey a 4/10 because one save file hurt its feelings.

The math ain't mathing, and in this case the calculator is just Dan Stapleton holding up one corrupted save file like it was the Zapruder film.

IGN's original Prey review landed with a 4/10, which is the kind of score normally reserved for licensed kart racers, broken movie tie-ins, and games where the jump button has to negotiate with the camera. But Prey was not being judged as a complete game. It was being sentenced for one reviewer's catastrophic bug experience, then marched into public with a number taped to its chest like a mugshot.

Let's be clear: bugs matter. A game-breaking save bug is not a garnish; it is the waiter dropping the soup into your lap and billing you for emotional damage. But a review score is supposed to describe the product as broadly experienced, not convert one personal disaster into a decimal-shaped obituary. IGN did not publish 'Dan had a terrible technical experience with Prey.' IGN published 'Prey: 4/10,' because nuance apparently couldn't survive the headline CMS.

Then came the best part: after a patch, IGN updated the score to 8/10. Congratulations, everyone. We have discovered that the same game can become twice as good through the ancient critical method of 'the reviewer can now load his save.' According to IGN mathematics, Prey did not improve by four points in design, writing, level structure, atmosphere, systems, or ambition. It improved because the review apparatus stopped catching fire.

This is the core problem: the review uses a score like a smoke alarm. Useful in an emergency, extremely annoying when it becomes the entire conversation. If a bug invalidates the reviewer's ability to finish the game, delay the scored review. Publish impressions. Add a technical warning. Do literally anything except stamp a major immersive sim with a 4/10 and then quietly admit later that, actually, it was pretty great once the toaster was unplugged.

A score should be a verdict, not a weather report from one unlucky living room. IGN turned a QA incident into criticism, then patched the criticism after the game got patched. That's not reviewing. That's synchronizing your opinion with the bug tracker.

We give this review a 2/10. One point for correctly identifying a real technical problem, one point for eventually backing away from the cliff, and zero points for making the entire internet watch a critic confuse sample size with science.