Updated 28 September 2026
If your invite just arrived, this is what candidates report meeting in 2026, pulled from their own posts rather than prep-course marketing. Where something is rumour, it says so.
Most candidates in 2026 report two games back to back: Red Rock Study (35 minutes) and Sea Wolf (30 minutes), 65 minutes in all. Since around March 2026 some also get a third, Sustainable Future Lab (about 20 minutes), for 85 minutes in total. Your invite email usually states the total time, which tells you which version you have.
The older Ecosystem game (build a food chain) was reported until mid-2025 and not since. Plant Defense appears only in older reports. "Ocean Cleanup" is another name candidates use for Sea Wolf, not a separate game.
Red Rock Study is a research case. You read a scenario, save the data you think matters, do the maths in an analysis phase, write up a short report (fill in blanks, pick the right chart), and then answer six short cases on the same scenario. It is where most people run short of time. How Red Rock works and how to pace it.
Sea Wolf is a sorting and selection game across three ocean sites. You pick what to measure, decide for each microbe whether it goes to this site, the next site or nowhere, and build a treatment of three. Choices are final. Sea Wolf step by step.
Sustainable Future Lab is a newer judgement game about a team and its stakeholders: a ranking, then a sequence of decisions. What candidates report about it.
McKinsey says it looks at both what you conclude and how you get there. The research behind the test describes a product score (your answers) and a process score built from the clicks and choices you make and when you make them. The weights are not published.
Candidates who ask their recruiter receive a scaled score, usually quoted in the 500s, and a decile against other applicants. Numbers like "511 is the minimum" circulate on forums, but nobody has shown a fixed cut-off, and it likely varies by office and year. Does it track your mouse? Probably not in the way people fear: what is actually known.
Almost every candidate post that reports a good score says the same three things: know the interface before the day so it does not eat your time, pace for the whole game from the first minute, and be quick with percentages and weighted averages. Doing one full run of each game on a clock covers all three.
Practise it on a clock before the real thing: the free demo is a complete 35-minute Field Study, our version of the research game, with six cases at the end.
Play the free demoCasesTrain is an independent practice tool. It is not affiliated with, endorsed by or connected to McKinsey & Company. McKinsey, Solve and the game names are used only to describe the test; they belong to their owners. What is written here comes from candidates' own public reports and McKinsey's public FAQ, and may change.