Google released the September 2022 product reviews update on September 20, 2022, around 4 am ET, the fifth in the series after the April 2021, December 2021, March 2022 and July 2022 releases. It applied to English-language product reviews, with Google again signalling that more languages would follow, and Google said the rollout could take several weeks. It did not: the updates page recorded completion as of September 26, 2022, six days in.
Like its predecessors, the update aimed to promote "review content that is above and beyond much of the templated information you see on the web": insightful analysis, original research, and reviews written by experts or enthusiasts who clearly know the topic. Templated, spec-sheet-style summaries are exactly what the system was built to leapfrog.
The awkward part was the timing. The entire six-day rollout ran inside the September 2022 core update's September 12-26 window, and both were recorded complete on the same day, which Search Engine Land noted could complicate diagnosis of ranking changes. If a site that publishes review content moved that week, either update could be responsible: the core update reassessed quality broadly, while the reviews update was aimed at review content specifically.