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Some two years after the infamous dismissal of GameSpot editorial director Jeff Gerstmann, rumoured to be a result of external pressure from Eidos over their disappointment in his review of IO Interactive’s Kane & Lynch, we caught up with IO’s Carsten Lund and Hakan Abrak to find out if time has healed painful memories.
“The fact that there was this whole scandal, the whole Gerstmann-gate thing, and the fact that it got mixed reviews are two different things,” said game director Carsten Lund. “The Gerstmann-gate thing we know nothing about, actually. We know as little as you guys might know. We were watching from the sidelines as developers, and it was sad. It was not really nice, but we couldn’t do anything about that. So there’s actually nothing for us to say.”
He added: “The fact that we got mixed reviews, of course we could do something about that. That is what we have been addressing with this title.”
Having heard what Carsten had to say on the matter, we grabbed producer Hakan Abrak and asked if the studio has been able to move past Gerstmann-gate.
“It’s been really weird for us, because for us we’ve been bystanders on the sideline looking at all this controversy happening,” said Abrak.
“The whole controversy with Gerstmann kind of got out of hand,” added Abrak. “You maybe even could say some of the criticism was given by people that haven’t played the game but jumped on the carousel with the whole thing. You can’t do anything about that, so we just tried to listen to constructive critique. Let’s face it, we had some problems with the mechanics, right? I mean, that’s the honest truth. We spent a lot of time trying to fix it this time around.”
Kane & Lynch 2: Dog Days is scheduled for release later this year on Xbox 360, PS3 and PC.
For more on Kane & Lynch 2: Dog Days, check out our first-look preview.
