After playing The Order: 1886 over the last six days, I’ve built up a love/hate relationship with Ready At Dawn’s devilishly handsome action-adventure. On one hand, its characters are compelling, the story intriguing and the audio and visual work outstanding, but there are also some areas that ultimately proved to be a little disappointing considering the hype, and my own high expectations.
So, let’s take a look at some of the good and the bad, the highs and the lows, the pros and cons of The Order: 1886.
1. Creating an alternative vision of the English capital
Love – The production is outstanding
The detail in The Order: 1886 is incredible with expertly polished cut scenes that blend into the gameplay immaculately. At times, it was hard to see any drop in quality from watching a cut scene to being involved in the action. There were certainly a few occasions where I gawped at the screen, immersed in its visual fidelity, not actually realising for a few moments that I was a part of it and could now move Sir Galahad. We’ve already seen the ingenuity that’s gone into creating the likes of reloading animations, but weapons, character design and interiors are just as impressive. Indeed, The Order: 1886 offers an atmospheric and detailed world that begs to be explored.
Hate – I can’t explore it
But that’s exactly it. You don’t really get to explore Ready At Dawn’s vision of the English capital at all. London is presented to you near the start of the game as this sprawling city ripe for exploration. When I stood on the balcony admiring an incredible view over the smoke-filled city, it felt similar to the moment in Assassin’s Creed games where I first caught a glance at the vast area that’s about to become my playground; a tingle of excitement ran down my spine in anticipation. As it turns out, The Order: 1886 is extremely linear. There are plenty of rooms to go searching for ammo, weapons and collectibles but there’s no real scope for exploration, something that I yearned for after being teased with my first look over the rooftops of 19th century London. For most of the game, I felt I was being led by the hand down a series of pathways, corridors to the next scripted moment. I wanted to embrace this new vision of London, but it never opened up to me.
2. Narrative-driven gameplay
Love – Storyline and characters
Ready At Dawn got it spot on with the characters and actors they chose to voice the main roles. It’s pretty much like watching a movie, and though cut scenes take up a huge chunk of the game, they’re beautifully produced, while the excellent script-writing keeps you interested as Sir Galahad’s character evolves and you uncover more about the Order. The Order: 1886 produces one of the finest video game examples of how to tell a story through a mixture of solid script-writing, a strong lead character and realistically detailed locations.
Hate – Keeps holding you back from the action
The fact that you’re watching and listening to dialogue for a significant part of the game, leaves you all the more raring to get stuck into some action once they’ve ended. However, for some bizarre reason, the speed of Galahad’s movement is constantly tampered with. One minute you can run like Mo Farah, and then all of a sudden they’ll remove that speed and only allow you to saunter at jogging pace. Then they’ll slow it down again allowing you only to move at snail’s pace when there’s no reason at all for you to amble around so awkwardly. If there was a lot of stuff to collect or go searching for then I wouldn’t have minded so much, but I’m just walking from A to B with little to do in between, so why slow me down? There are many fast-paced scenes in The Order to enjoy, but I also felt held back by the sluggishness and plodding pace of stunted movement.
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3. QTEs and interaction
Love – QTEs in battle
Interaction plays quite a large role in The Order: 1886. QTEs can kick in at any moment and provide cinematic flair to a boss fight or a melee battle, while the best example of interactions are when you get close to enemies and execute a takedown with the press of the triangle. The executions are brutal, satisfying and context sensitive, so there’s and a morbid feeling of satisfaction gained from smashing someone’s head off the side of a snooker table, or stamping them into the ground.
Hate – Pointless, repetitive interactions
Then, I’m made to go lock-picking and conduct other mundane tasks like moving carts to get to the next area by tapping ‘X.’ Once, fair enough, but three times plus and it gets predictable. The biggest bore though comes from lock-picking. It doesn’t happen all too often, but every time I encountered a locked door and had to go through the painstaking task of picking the lock, which requires no skill once you’ve done it once, I let out a big sigh. It adds absolutely nothing to the game, other than showing off a high-tech lock pick and delaying you in reaching the next exciting moment. Then there’s the TS-27 Inverter/Rectifier which can disrupt power sources. It sounds great, but once again, each time you use it, prepare yourselves for a dull mini-game (of sorts) where you have to press and hold the L3 and R3 buttons to trap bits of mercury between needles. It’s totally pointless.
4. Fighting like you mean it
Love – Intense battles, killing enemies in a variety of ways
The boss fights, as well as the larger, more intense battles and cinematic QTEs are thoroughly enjoyable and tense, and it’s good fun zapping enemies with the Arc gun, setting enemies alight with the Thermite Gun and pulling the pin of fragmentation grenades and watching the damage it causes. Stealth kills add variety too and it’s refreshing to play a game where you can’t just run-and-gun but have to systematically dispatch enemies before moving forward to the next area or point of cover.
Hate – Lack of enemy variety
I feel like I could have played through The Order: 1886 in its entirety brandishing just my pistol. Level design isn’t so brilliant that you’re forced to use different tactics to make use of the weapon set. Duck and shoot is what it’s really all about, and with no weapon upgrades to aim for there’s not much that encouraged me to change it up, other than just seeing what the effects were of the other weapons. The lack of enemy variety is disappointing too. Yes, there’s a few half-breeds that you have to dodge and then shoot before dodging again, but there’s also dozens of generic redcoats. There’s one enemy that has a mask over his face which makes him harder to kill, but generally it’s the same type of dudes. The only real time it’s switched up is when the game throws enemies at you in larger numbers to try and overwhelm you. It shouldn’t be about the quantity though, quality was what I’d hoped for.
In conclusion
I’ve tried to be balanced in my assessment of The Order: 1886 and I encourage you to make up your own minds by reading reviews, watching gameplay videos or streams, or just buying the game and trying it out for yourself. Despite the negative aspects of this feature, I still had a good time in the 7-8 hours it took me to complete. It just could have been much better.
Check out the PSU review of The Order: 1886.