What is an S tier game?
An S tier game is a game placed in the top band of a tier list, the one above A. In general use it means "the best of the best". On Tier it has an exact definition: a community average of 9 out of 10 or higher, the band that earns the letter S, labelled Masterpiece.
Last updated by the Tier team.
Where the letter comes from
Tier lists rank things into lettered rows, and the letters run A, B, C, D, F like a school report. S sits above A, which is the part that confuses newcomers, because alphabetically it should not. The convention is commonly explained as coming from Japanese ranking systems, where a rank above A is written with a character usually translated as "special" or "superior"; the habit reached western players through fighting game and gacha communities, where character rankings were argued over row by row, and then spread to every subject a group of people could argue about.
The important thing is not the etymology, it is the social function. A tier list is a compact, arguable statement. Saying a game is S tier is a stronger claim than giving it eight out of ten, because a letter invites the reply "no, that is A at best", and the conversation that follows is the whole point.
What S tier means on Tier specifically
Tier turns that vocabulary into a defined scale. Players rate a game with a whole number from 1 to 10, the site averages the published ratings, and the average falls into a band: S from 9, A from 8, B from 6.5, C from 5, D from 3, F below that. S and A are the narrowest bands on the scale, one rating point each.
That makes an S grade genuinely hard to reach. It is not enough for a game to be widely loved; the people who rated it have to agree, near unanimously, that there is nothing to take off. A game sitting at 8.9 is an A on this site, and the page will say A. If you have ever wondered why a beloved classic is not S tier here, that arithmetic is the reason.
A grade also has to be earned by enough people. Below five community ratings, Tier does not assert a grade at all: the page shows what has been posted, without presenting it as a verdict and without ranking the game in the hubs. It stops one enthusiastic first rating from crowning anything.
S tier, game of the year and a 100 from the press
These three things get confused constantly and they measure different populations. A game of the year award is a jury decision about one specific year. A press score out of 100 is an average of professional reviews, usually written at launch, before patches and before anyone has lived with the game for a season. An S grade on Tier is what the players who rated it think, at the moment you are reading the page, and it keeps moving.
This is why the game pages print the community grade and the external score side by side instead of merging them. The external score is only shown above thirty ratings, for the same reason the grade needs five: a number nobody stands behind is decoration.
How to find S tier games
The ranked hubs are the shortest path: they list the highest graded games by genre and by platform, with the vote floor already applied, so you are reading grades that at least a handful of people stand behind. From there every game page shows its own distribution, which is often more informative than the letter: a game with a wall of S and a wall of F is a very different proposition from one that everybody rated a 7.
And if you disagree with a grade, the only way to move it is to add your own rating. That is the honest version of arguing about tier lists: it takes ten seconds and it changes the number.
Frequently asked questions
Is S tier better than A tier?
Yes. S sits above A, despite the alphabet. It is the top row of a tier list, and on Tier it corresponds to a community average of 9 out of 10 or higher.
What is above S tier?
Nothing, on Tier. Some communities invent SS or EX rows above S; the scale here stops at S on purpose, because a ladder that keeps growing a new top rung stops ranking anything.
How many games are S tier?
Very few, and the number changes as ratings come in. Because S requires a community average of 9.0 or above and at least five ratings, most widely loved games settle at A. The ranked hubs show the current top of each genre.
Can a game lose its S tier?
Yes. The grade is a live average, so a few low ratings are enough to pull it back below 9 and out of the S band. Nothing is frozen, and no grade is editorial.
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Keep reading: the full grade scale or the game catalogue. Version française : qu'est-ce qu'un jeu tier S.