The long-awaited Darksiders 3 launch has not gone according to plans for THQ Nordic and now the company is responding to reviews of the game that has been, at best, mixed. The return to the series for the first time in six years has garnered an overall Metacritic score of 72 for the PC version and a low of 66 for the PS4 version.

Despite review scores almost certainly lower than what THQ Nordic expected for its newest release, CEO Lars Wingefors says he is still very pleased with the final product. In an interview with gamesindustry.biz, he added he feels his company is honoring the legacy of what is now a trilogy.  Wingefors also went out of his way to praise Gunfire Games, the company THQ Nordic worked with to bring the project to fruition.

"The promise we made was to deliver a game to the fans of the franchise, and I'm really proud of it. I'm really proud of what we've been able to show you, I think Gunfire has made an excellent game, and even my publishing team in Vienna has been working really hard to execute on this -- all the marketing, all the behind-the-scenes things."

Wingefors went on to say that there are "always a few people not enjoying this kind of product," but there are also plenty of people who are enjoying the game. He also said he thinks his team stuck to their guns and delivered a product that fans are really enjoying. This last part is an apparent claim that the media and regular gamers are diverging in their opinion of Darksiders 3, but once again, Metacritic scores show the two groups are mostly in sync. The average rating among users on the website is 7.2, which matches up almost exactly with the best score the game scored from critics.

THQ Nordic and Wingefors being defensive about the project certainly makes sense considering this is the first game that is the culmination of the firm's picking up where the original THQ left off. While Wingefors points out the timeline between the acquisition of the license to final release was relatively short, it's clear they feel as though quite a bit of time and a ton of hard work has gone into making a game that offers a deep story that is also visually impressive. At the moment, the gaming public does not entirely agree with that sentiment.

Darksiders 3 is available on the PS4, Xbox One, and PC

Source: Gamesindustry.biz