01What we do
Ashvarden reviews role-playing games for players and families in the UK. We write only about games we have played across many evenings, and every chronicle says how long a sitting runs, where the game lets you rest and save, who can reach you online and what it sells once you own it.
02Why a beacon?
In many fantasy games you light a fire, a lamp or a beacon when you rest. It is where your progress is kept, where you recover, and where you decide where to go next. We think an evening with a game deserves the same: a clear place to stop, and a lamp that shows how much of the night is left.
03Where the name comes from
A varde is an old Nordic word for a stone cairn on a hilltop, sometimes lit as a beacon to guide travellers home. Ashvarden is our ash-grey cairn: a fire that tells you where the road is, and when it is time to rest.
04Who writes the reviews
A small team of long-time players of role-playing games, from turn-based classics to open-world adventures, together with parents who set up the family controls on every platform we mention and play several of these worlds with their children.
05How the site is paid for
Not by anyone in the games business. There are no adverts, affiliate links, sponsored reviews or products for sale. We host no games, run no accounts and take no payments.
06Conflicts of interest
If a reviewer has a personal or professional link to a game or studio, someone else writes the chronicle and it says so. We accept no gifts, trips, early copies or in-game items in exchange for coverage.
07The artwork
Every picture of a game’s world is an original illustration made for Ashvarden in the spirit of that game’s own look: a painted, ash-dark realm for one, a sunny cel-shaded kingdom for another, a pixel-art village for a third. None of it is official artwork, a screenshot or a real person. Our beacon emblem is our own.
08Why UK English?
British spelling, UK age labels and UK support services. No pop-ups, no autoplaying video or sound and no tracking of any kind.
09Corrections
Spotted a mistake? Tell us through hello@ashvarden.co.uk. Every report is checked, and corrections are made on the page itself.