The Pokemon studio's new RPG averages 73. Almost none of its reviewers landed there.

The Pokemon studio's new action RPG opened in August 2026 to critic scores running from 9.5 out of 10 down to 6. Beast of Reincarnation, made by Game Freak, averages 72 on PC and 73 on PlayStation 5. That is per GamesRadar+'s August 4, 2026 roundup, citing Metacritic. Xbox had too few logged reviews to produce an average at all, the outlet reported.

It is not Game Freak's first game away from Pokemon. The outlet lists Little Town Hero and Pocket Card Jockey. But this one carries realistic visuals, a post-apocalyptic setting and heavy action combat. That is why the scores matter to anyone who follows this studio. This is the swing away from the series that pays for the building. It was judged in public in its first week.

At the top of the range, Vice gave it 9.5 out of 10, GamesRadar+ reported. Vice praised the mix of real-time and turn-based fighting. GamesRadar+'s own review gave it 9 out of 10. That review called it a strong action RPG with firm combat and wide build variety. It credited a story that trusts the player to dig in.

At the bottom, VGC and Eurogamer each gave it 6 out of 10. VGC criticized the setting, the story and the shortage of enemy variety. Eurogamer described it as riffing on Sekiro and Monster Hunter with mixed results, per the same roundup.

Players split the same way. The game's Steam rating was Mixed at the time of writing. Positive reviews accounted for 52% of more than 700 English-language reviews, the outlet reported. One positive review said the combat "feels slick and the 'hair' movement extending vertically and horizontally is a really nice touch", GamesRadar+ quoted. A negative one said "combat feels unrewarding and uninspired, guarding and parrying are very inconsistent and sword impacts feel like a dry pool noodle."

My take: the average is the least useful number in this story

A 72 or a 73 built out of 9.5s and 6s does not describe a mediocre game. It describes an unresolved one. Average a rave and a shrug and you get a number no reviewer actually filed. And 52% positive out of more than 700 reviews is about as evenly divided as a store page gets. The interesting figure here is the spread, not the mean.

So I would defend the high scores over the low ones. One condition comes with that, and the roundup cannot satisfy it. Nothing in it says which build any of these verdicts were formed on. That is the version stamp this desk asks for on every post-launch story. On August 4, 2026, it is missing from the whole conversation.

It matters because the game did not stay still. The same GamesRadar+ page links its own follow-up coverage. One of those headlines describes a patch aimed at the game's biggest pain points. Another describes an update addressing story issues amid the Mixed Steam rating. A third has the director saying he is sorry the game is not enjoyable enough. No dates are attached to those links in the material read here. So the sequence between the reviews and the fixes is not something this desk can pin down.

I cannot tell you how many hours in it clicks. No one here has played it. And no scored review in the roundup says what version it judged. Until somebody publishes both numbers, the hour and the patch, the honest reading of a 73 is simple. Two credible sets of critics played different games with the same name.

Source: gamesradar.com, retrieved August 28, 2026.