Review: The Order 1886 Is Inoffensively Fun, But Amounts To Little

The Order 1886 has been under a lot of scrutiny despite not being as hyped or marketed as other triple A releases. Ready at Dawn has kept things close to the chest. Did it leave the game open to surprise us, or just mask the fact that there wasn't much to show?

• Name: The Order: 1886
• Genre: Third Person Shooter
• Players: 1
• Multiplayer: N/A
• Platforms: PS4
• Developer: Ready at Dawn, SCE Santa Monica
• Publisher: Sony Computer Entertainment
• Price: $60 (R759)
• Reviewed On: PS4

The Order 1886 is Ready at Dawn’s first attempt at making it big on the grand stage, backed by the experienced SCE Santa Monica Studio. It’s been a peculiar journey to its release, with The Order barely having a fraction of the hype and promotional marketing you’d expect from the usual big triple A releases. Weirder still is that the initial footage for the game was rather dull and unremarkable, yet things only picked up a month before release. It was a surprisingly low-key game, with Ready at Dawn keeping things pretty close to the chest. While that could have either lead to pleasant surprise or the reality that there just wasn’t much to show, we think the final result is quite indicative of its level of marketing hype. It’s a low-key game, to tell the truth, and is content to just show up, do its thing and walk off the stage without resulting in a standing ovation or causing a riot. It hasn’t done anything drastically wrong, but the final product certainly isn’t the next big thing for Sony’s black box.

Evidence of its desire to not make too big a deal of itself is frequently shown in its story. The game is rooted in alternate history London — a remarkable choice of setting — where an old order of knights exists to keep people safe from half-breed monsters. Their secret is the Black Water elixir that can heal all wounds and extend their lifespans to centuries. You’ll take on the role of Sir Galahad as he journeys through the kind of narrative setup we’ve seen many times before, with the proud order obviously having some dark secrets and its resistance not actually being so bad. The room for originality exists with the setting, although it’s grossly underused. In the sense that the game has a rich backstory, but a shallow plot that barely even explores any of it. The half-breeds are interesting, but not really explored or interacted with past some fights. And it’s more revealing in the way you’ll not get to see or breathe in the world, due to such a constrained focus. It’s just sort of there.

The story itself is serviceable, but could have been really good if its genuinely smart ideas were expanded or focused on. It’s almost as though it makes meek attempts at pushing out of its comfort zone, but quietly sinks back into it out of fear of standing out. It also suffers from nuances such as cliched dialogue, predictability and starting the narrative in the future for no reason other than to artificially create intrigue and unintentionally just tell you who won’t die in the story. All of that could have been forgiven if it wasn’t for the fact that the game just barely uses much of its rich back story or the setting or even its own strongest elements, such as the half-breeds. More so it’s tragically inconclusive despite good ideas and interesting revelations toward the end. The Order 1886 could have been much more than a serviceable story, but it fails to aspire to much more than that. Hell, it could have gone on for five hours longer, but ends so abruptly you’ll be damn surprised.

The game benefits most from its setting with the gorgeous art direction. The Order 1886 honestly is one of the most beautiful games you could play. It’s jaw-dropping most of the time, but we loved how subtle it is with that fact. The game never tries to vomit its visual prowess or spectacle all over your face, instead focusing on its smooth cinematic transitions between gameplay and cutscenes which happen so fluidly and brilliantly that sometimes you may not even know you actually regained control over your character. It’s incredible as a cinematic experience and in the way it can flow between gameplay and cutscene with the kind of grace that makes them not feel like separate entities. The Order 1886 is definitely raising the bar right now as a seamless visual and cinematic spectacle.

Perhaps what’s more impressive than that is how absolutely impeccable the game is in its performance. When you consider that today even massive budget games like Assassin’s Creed Unity can run like complete shit, it’s a pleasant (if not a little sad) surprise that The Order 1886 is a beast of a game. In my entire playthrough — which spanned around seven or eight hours — I encountered a single visual bug and one insignificant instance of frame rate dip during a massive fight with lots going on. That’s to say the game doesn’t just look ridiculously good, but plays that way too. Even loading times are non-existent, never breaking up gameplay. Fair enough graphics don’t make a game, but any sane person would argue that even an amazing game can be reduced to a mess if it’s technically inept. For that, Ready at Dawn can be proud of their achievements here.

However it’s in the gameplay where The Order 1886 misses most of its opportunities and makes its mistakes, over and above the unambitious story. It can be strange at times, as it often feels as though Ready at Dawn were switching back and forth between creating their own game and trying to tick all the boxes of what you’d expect in a modern action title. The perfect illustration of this is in how you’ll engage in a boss battle with a Lycan, which is absolutely awesome, and use unique weaponry like an arc gun or thermite rifle, but then you’ll also be a party to forced stealth sections with unimpressive mechanics, mundane hacking and lockpicking activities and minor just-because platforming. It’s another case of a game just lacking the confidence to be completely itself and wanting to appease all the players it possibly can. Fortunately nothing ever feels bad to play in The Order 1886, as all of its mechanics are functional enough to work without any frustration, but it doesn’t really excel at much of what it does or build on the few unique scenarios and encounters it offers.

We’ve seen a bit of a deal made out of its quick-time events, but we didn’t find them too upsetting. They’re reminiscent of Heavy Rain in their fluidity, and they mostly serve to compliment the cinematic feel. They never angered us or made the mistake of arriving unexpectedly, which probably would have caused us to throw a controller through the screen. The real tragedy is in missed opportunity. A telling example of this is in how you only ever fight small lycans, apart from once early on where you engage in a fantastic boss battle with an elder, and sadly that’s the extent of the usage of the half-breeds. Despite the existence of vampires in the game, you never fight one. The final boss fight is basically a repeat of that initial elder encounter. That is to say the game does have standout moments and ideas to differentiate itself from its competitors, but fails to explore them. You’re constantly waiting for more boss battles or unique encounters, but they never come as the game remains trapped in familiarity.

The gunplay is as you’d expect, with very competent cover and shooting mechanics. The great part is how stunningly visceral it feels thanks to the amazing audio and visual experience and fantastic environmental destructibility. It’s also helped by a small variety of unique weaponry such as with the earlier mentioned arc gun, which can blow someone’s head clean off with a bolt of electricity, and the thermite rifle, which is a really effective human cooking tool. As is the story with most of the game, gunplay does the job and not a whole lot more than that. One area of disappointment is the melee combat because while it’s animated very well, especially contextually, it amounts to nothing more than a single button press for an instant kill. The game would have benefited much more from a system like that of Uncharted or The Last Of Us, which both have a great feel, offer good brutal feedback for the player and add more freedom to the gameplay, but at present it severely lacks variety.

What may divide players’ enjoyment of The Order 1886 is in how restrictive it can feel due to its emphasis on its cinematic experience. You’ll only draw your gun when you enter a combat scenario, you’ll only go into stealth mode when the game forces it on you, and you’ll only make use of platforming when the game wants you to. Weirdly it’s almost like an on-rails experience in a sense. You’re either going to love the smoothness of the cinematic experience and appreciate how effortlessly and fluidly the game moves from scene to scene, or you’re going to find it to be an unremarkable bore. Neither of those perspectives would make you wrong, since we can understand either. In that way it’s easier to stomach how The Order 1886 is currently making the rounds as a love-hate game, and there’ll be plenty of debates on that front. Which is strange since there aren’t going to be a whole lot of talking points or memorable moments from the actual game, thanks to its lack of ambition.

In the end the extent to which The Order 1886 will satisfy you depends largely on how you see its cinematic experience and how much you’re expecting out of it. In truth it’s an average gameplay experience elevated by its incredible visuals, astounding technical achievements and at times brilliant execution of its cinematic experience. Beneath all the beauty however it’s a game that’s competent in its mechanics but unremarkable with them. It has a rich backstory, but is completely unambitious with its narrative. It has the potential to be far more than it is, but is content with dousing itself in familiarity. It overshadows its own strengths in its bid to be accepted by all, but none can say that it’s a bad game. The unfortunate reality is just that no one will be talking about it or remembering it come the end of the year, and we’d be surprised if it even makes it to the end of the month as a hot topic. In no uncertain terms The Order 1886 is disposal entertainment, and sadly it can probably get by on being that.

Name: Azhar Lorgat
Location: Cape Town
Position: Potato

Azhar has published 3571 posts. Read all of Azhar's posts.

• Email Me
• My RSS Feed
• Follow Me On Twitter