A YouTube playthrough of The Order: 1886, the visually stunning PS4 exclusive hitting stores on Friday, indicates that the game may only last 5 hours and 30 minutes - and that's including the cutscenes.
The video follows shortly after reports of players being able to complete the game in just a few hours, something Ready At Dawn has strongly denied to Eurogamer.
"I know there are numbers out there," said creative director Ru Weerasuriya. "I know why the question comes up. I know numbers have been put out there that are actually not right. It's impossible to finish the game in that time, so we know the numbers are wrong."
Weerasuriya wasn't willing to state the game's actual length, but does believe the single-player-only experience provides good value to players.
"Game length is important," he said. "Every game has to take its own time to tell its story. Some games can be short. Some games can be long. I still remember the first time I picked up Modern Warfare, I finished the campaign in about three-and-a-half or four hours. And it was fun because they made that campaign work for that because they had something else."
He added: "You go back 10 years, there were a lot of games that were just single-player, one time play. There were some games that were single-player and you could jump back in and get more. That's what we did in our game. You can jump back and get other things out of it."
Without stating how long The Order will last, Weerasuriya countered the argument that 'longer is better' several more times.
"I've played games that lasted two hours that were better than games that I played for 16 hours. That's the reality of it," he explained.
"I've had many more experiences of very short games that have floored me, that have left me dreaming of the things I could do after, more than the games that have lasted 15, 16, 20 or 30 hours, where I've just been like, okay, I played it through and I got what I wanted, but I didn't get more than what I was expecting. Sometimes I want to be floored, even if it's for a short amount of time."
He concluded: "Gameplay length for me is so relative to quality. It's just like a movie. Just because a movie is three hours long, it doesn't make it better."
The Order: 1886 hits stores on Friday.
