Sophie Laurent

5+ years sports gaming coverage, deep knowledge of sports game development cycles and community feedback loops

Sophie Laurent treats sports game release cycles the way other people follow football leagues — with spreadsheets, preseason predictions, and a healthy dose of scepticism toward marketing promises. She covers FIFA, NBA 2K, Madden, F1, and the increasingly crowded racing sim space, paying particular attention to career modes, physics engine changes, and whether this year's iteration is worth the upgrade. Sophie started writing about sports games after realising the genre's dedicated community deserved coverage that took the games as seriously as they did, not just a score and a shrug. She also maintains a running tally of every broken promise made by sports game publishers since 2015, which has become something of a community in-joke.