David Jaffe and The Bartlet Jones Supernatural Detective Agency (his newly-formed company) are weighing in on The Order: 1886 and the critical response it’s received from press. While there is always the outlier in game reviews like Polygon who decided to give The Last of Us a 7/10, while nearly every other publication gave the game of the year a perfect or near perfect score, The Order: 1886 has been a different beast.

Hailed as a visual masterpiece on PS4, The Order has received a near schizophrenic response from press with review scores all over. Having only had a chance to play the game briefly at CES 2015, I cannot give my own opinion on the PS4 exclusive with much integrity. Other journalists, however, have offered a dizzying number of scores which range from a 1/5 from Digital Trends to a 9.5/10 (PSNation) and every score in between.

Are journalists being too harsh on the game and taking out their distaste for more narrative-driven Hollywood-like tales on The Order, or do they raise genuine concerns with the game? David Jaffe (God of War, Twisted Metal) and the team at The Bartlet Jones Supernatural Detective Agency (the studio working on the up coming free-to-play PS4 exclusive Drawn to Death) weigh in on the game’s review scores in the video after the jump.

The reason I find the video fascinating and maybe even refreshing is that it’s easy to scoff at a journalist review. Fans of game studios and platforms often throw out remarks like ‘clearly he’s just a jaded journalist’ or ‘it’s so obvious he’s in bed with that company. After all, he DID receive the game for free.’ But tucking such commentary for a minute, we hardly get to hear what developers thing of other titles or the critical response from journalists.

After all, their opinion surely must differ from gamers or journalists who at times have maybe little understanding of what it takes to put together a game or the vision that a studio was trying to execute. Then again, maybe they don’t.

Discuss:

Are journalists being too harsh on The Order: 1886?