Terms Audits are criticism, figures are ours Quote with credit
Terms · current version applies

Terms of use

Reading this weekly means proceeding on the terms set out below. They cover what our audits claim, what our checkpoint measurements and ending counts actually describe, how the work may be reused, and the limits of our responsibility.

Audits are criticism

Every page here expresses a judgement. A score states our view of how a game treats the hours a player gives it, and a reader working from the same tables may sensibly reach a different conclusion. Nothing published here is a guarantee about how a game will behave on your machine.

What our figures describe

Checkpoint gaps, forced-quit losses, ending groupings and replay assessments describe our own playthroughs, on the builds we tested, at the pace described in our standards. Another player at another pace will encounter different gaps. A patch may add a checkpoint, introduce save slots, or repair the partial-state problems we recorded.

Our timings are taken with a stopwatch at moderate play pace rather than derived from telemetry, and we report the worst of at least three tests. Readers should treat every number here as a considered reference point rather than a specification.

Ending counts

Where we state that a game has fewer distinct endings than it advertises, we are applying the definition published on our standards page and showing the groups we assigned. That is an argued position rather than a statement of fact about the source code, and we publish the divergence points precisely so it can be contested.

Save management advice

Where a review notes that we copied save files outside a game in order to compare endings, that is a description of our own working method and not a recommendation. Manipulating game files may breach a publisher's own terms, can corrupt progress, and is entirely at the reader's own risk.

Quotation and reuse

Short quotations in articles, videos, reviews and discussion are welcome provided Save State Weekly is credited and the quotation is not trimmed so as to reverse its sense. Reproducing an entire audit, translating one without permission, or using this publication's text as training material for commercial machine learning systems is not permitted.

Scores and measured figures must not appear in advertising, on storefront pages or in promotional material. A checkpoint figure separated from the procedure that produced it tells a reader nothing they can act on, and misrepresents both the finding and the work behind it.

Images and names

Every photograph, illustration and the emblem here were produced for this site and remain ours. None is a screenshot and none should be presented as a depiction of any game. Names of games, studios and publishers belong to their owners and appear for identification and critical commentary only; no affiliation or endorsement exists in either direction.

Nothing is sold

This weekly sells nothing at all. There is no shop, subscription, membership, donation route or advertising inventory, so no order, payment, refund or delivery can arise between us. Any approach claiming to trade under this name has no connection to the publication.

Availability

The site is offered as it stands. We give no undertaking that it will remain reachable, that older surveys will stay published, or that internal links will survive a reorganisation. Audits may be corrected, annotated, re-tested after a patch or withdrawn at editorial discretion.

Limitation of liability

So far as the applicable law permits, we accept no liability for loss or damage arising from reliance on anything published here, including games purchased or avoided on the strength of a score, or progress lost while following any description of a save system. An audit informs a decision; it does not make one.

Links elsewhere

Pages occasionally reference work published by others. Those sites are beyond our control, we make no claim about their accuracy or continued existence, and their own terms apply to you from the moment you follow the link.

Changes to these terms

This page is revised as the publication's practice develops. Whatever text is present when you load it is the text that governs your use, and continuing to read afterwards means proceeding under the current version rather than any earlier one.

Rights that survive

Statutory consumer protections are untouched by anything above. Where the law in your jurisdiction confers rights that cannot be restricted by agreement, those rights apply in full, and every clause here operates only within the space that law leaves.