Editorial Policy

Our Goal

Patch Notes Wire publishes evergreen guides and explainers about fighting games and combat-focused action games. Our goal is accuracy and clarity. This page explains how we choose topics, how we check facts and what we do when we get something wrong.

How We Choose Topics

We focus on questions players genuinely ask and that stay useful beyond a single balance patch: how a mechanic works, how to read frame data, how to start a series, how a franchise evolved. We avoid leaks, rumours, tier lists that change every season and content that depends on this week’s results. We do not publish gambling content, and we do not promote cheats, exploits or account trading.

Research and Fact-Checking

Mechanics, move properties and frame data are checked against official sources such as in-game guides, publisher system pages and official frame data, along with well-maintained community wikis.
Release dates, platforms and series history are checked against developer and publisher announcements and reputable reference sources.
Tournament formats and rules are checked against the organizers’ published rulesets.
Fighting games are rebalanced regularly, so where details can change we state the point in time or version they refer to, for example “as of 2026” or “as of Season 3”.
If we cannot verify a claim, we leave it out. We do not invent quotes, statistics or personal play experiences.

Sources

Each article ends with a list of the main sources we used, linked so readers can check them. We prefer primary sources such as official game sites, move lists and tournament rulesets.

Use of AI Tools

AI tools assist our team with research organisation and drafting. Every article is then fact-checked against sources and edited by a person before publication. Responsibility for what we publish rests with our editorial team, not with any software.

Authorship

Articles are published under the pen name Dean Whitaker, which represents our small independent editorial team. We do not attribute credentials, rankings, tournament placings or experience to the pen name that we do not have.

Corrections and Updates

If you find an error, please email [email protected] with the article link and, ideally, a source. We review every report. Factual errors are corrected promptly, and significant corrections are noted at the end of the article with the date of the update. We also review evergreen articles periodically when major updates change how a game works.