It looks like PlayStation is introducing user reviews on the PS Store.
In a thread entitled "When did PlayStation start allowing written reviews?", an eagle-eyed PS5 owner noted on the PlayStation subreddit that the company was inviting user reviews for a select number of games.
Whilst fans have long been able to rate games from zero to five stars out of five, this is the first time players have been invited to leave a written review.
According to some respondents, PlayStation.com is emailing players and inviting them to share their thoughts on a handful of games, including Helldivers 2, Fortnite, Resident Evil 4, and Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth.
When did PlayStation start allowing written reviews? Seems to only be allowed for few games on their store pages for now.byu/cusman78 inplaystation
As some commenters opine, the success of user reviews does vary, with many pointing out how useful Valve's listing of how many hours a player has played thus far, and also how much they'd played at the time they left a review.
Right now, the feature seems to be limited to a handful of games, you have to have a digital version of the game to participate, and reviews can only be submitted via the PlayStation.com site, too; as some players point out, this isn't necessarily a bad thing given it may be quite laborious to have to write out a full review using nowt but a controller.
Interestingly, Valve also recently revealed it was shaking up reviews by introducing a new filter system to help players sift out user reviews not deemed "helpful".
As spotted by a member of the Steam subreddit, Valve appears to have briefly activated a "helpfulness system" that essentially hid joke or silly reviews from view.