Metacritic’s Eurogamer score conversions expose a ratings mismatch

Metacritic’s treatment of Eurogamer’s five-star reviews has reignited a familiar problem: a score can look harsher after it is translated into a different scale. A three-star review that Eurogamer considers broadly positive or mixed appears as 60/100 on Metacritic, even when the surrounding reviews push a game’s overall Metascore above 80.¹²

The immediate discussion centres on four games: Final Fantasy Resonance, CONTROL Resonant, Castlevania: Belmont’s Curse and Phantom Blade Zero. Power Unlimited editor-in-chief Simon Zijlemans highlighted Metacritic listings showing Eurogamer’s 60-point conversions alongside higher aggregate scores. The point is not necessarily that Eurogamer is unusually negative. It is that the conversion makes a middle-of-the-road five-star rating look like a distinctly low percentage score.¹

Why the conversion looks harsher

Eurogamer moved to a five-star system in May 2023. Its review policy says three stars can cover work that is lukewarm, mixed or even mostly positive, but lacks the extra quality needed for four stars. The publication also stresses that the written review carries the reasoning, while the stars provide only a snapshot.²³

Metacritic’s job is different. It needs a common numerical scale to combine reviews from outlets using different systems, so three stars out of five becomes 60 out of 100. That arithmetic is simple, but the meaning is not identical: 60/100 is commonly read as a weak score, while three out of five can signal an imperfect game with plenty to recommend.¹²

The distinction matters because aggregate scores are used as shorthand by players, publishers and investors. Automaton notes claims that Phantom Blade Zero’s Metascore fell from 91 to 88 after Eurogamer’s review was added, although that specific movement is attributed to social-media commentary rather than an official Metacritic explanation.¹ It is safer to treat the example as evidence of how one converted score can affect perception, not as proof that Metacritic’s calculation is wrong.

Our opinion

This is less a case for abandoning either system than a warning about false precision. Eurogamer is entitled to use a scale that reflects a critic’s judgement in a compact way, and Metacritic is entitled to normalise different outlets for comparison. The trouble begins when the converted number is read as though it carries exactly the same nuance as the original stars. Metacritic could make that gap clearer by displaying the source scale alongside the converted figure, while readers should treat the review text as the real evidence and the aggregate number as a rough signal.