Editorial | The Order 1886: 4 years later.

By Sam Coles:

As I get older I find myself mellowing out when it comes to games, a game has to be really bad for me to get genuinely angry about it. When I first reviewed The Order 1886 back in 2015 I was very harsh about it, not to say my criticism wasn’t justified in some aspects. As I look back at The Order 1886 four years down the line, I have to say it is a game that is underrated to a certain degree, now I know it is a short game and I would have been annoyed if I had spent £50 on it at launch for a 4-5 hour experience. However what we have here is a unique setting, and these days you can pick it up for £5 second hand. I want to talk about this game and why you should give it a go today, and what it could have been with a sequel.

The Order 1886 is a what if scenario where King Arthur’s knights had discovered the Holy Grail, where they become a secret police for the royal family as they protect the citizens of London from werewolves and rebel incursion. You play as Sir Galahad a loyal knight who has been fighting for several centuries at this point. His loyalty starts to waver, due to his organisation covering up a sinister conspiracy.  The great thing about this premise is that you could set in anytime period after they had discovered the Holy Grail, you could even set it when they are on the crusade to find the Grail the possibilities are endless with this concept.

The gameplay was where everyone was split; honestly I thought it was great with the gunplay. However it’s the segments when the game decides to take control from you, where it forces you to walk, blocks off convenient passages and doesn’t let you switch or brandish you firearms at all. It kills the pace and makes replaying the game a pain in my plebeian backside.

The gunplay on the other hand is fantastic; you have the guns of the time period such as revolvers, early semi-auto pistols and bolt action rifles. On the other hand you have more exotic weapons such as, the arc gun which shoots a bolt of lightning, a thermite rifle that peppers enemies in dust where you can set on them fire with a flare and my favourite the triple barrel shotgun with dragons breathe shells that that eviscerates enemies. A lot of people criticised the gunplay as Gears of War in the 19^th century which I would retort with “So what”?  If you are going to take a framework of a third person shooter there is nothing better than Gears, with its tight and precise controls. The controls are great; you get good feedback when you gun down enemies with blood flying everywhere, heads exploding like grapes and skin torn off arms and legs as buckshot shreds like a guillotine.  

The most startling aspect about The Order are the visuals, even to this day The Order is one of the best looking games I have played on the PlayStation 4 it is mind blowing that 4 years later it gives most games that have come out recently a run for their money. When it was first announced at E3 of 2013 I thought there is no way that the game looks this good, you have to bear in mind that me and most gamers were still gaming on an Xbox 360 and PS3 at the time. I thought it was another fake “gameplay” trailer from Sony, similar what they tried to pull with Killzone 2 back in the day, but no I was wrong when I got to review it back in 2015 when Sony sent me a copy of the game and I was flawed with how good it looked.

When I first booted up The Order I couldn’t believe what I was looking at, it looked like a pre-rendered cutscene but when gameplay kicked in I realised no that is what the game looks like. The character models look amazing with an exquisite amount of detail, what also helps is that the motion capture and acting is superb with convincing performances from the entire cast. 

The only issue with the visuals that got on my nerves is the aspect ratio, Read At Dawn decided to go with a cinematic widescreen aspect ratio throughout the entire game, it looks great in cutscenes but it is very annoying and restrictive in gameplay. I say restrictive in gameplay because it greatly reduces the field of view, this is doubly irritating when you are in cover as all you can see is the wall texture you are hiding behind. This is not an issue these days as I replayed it on a 50 inch television, but when I first reviewed it back in 2015 I played it on a dinky 20 inch monitor which caused some visibility issues.

The Order 1886 is a game that has become lost in the archives in Sony’s library, yes it is short, yes it has its issues but it is something that is truly unique with its story, setting and gameplay when it ramps up. I understand at the time people felt burnt paying £50 for a game that last between 5-7 hours, but if you haven’t tried it I urge you to as you can pick it up for £5 second hand. I hope one day we get a sequel and hopefully Ready At Dawn have learnt from their mistakes, as we could get something special.