The Order: 1886 — Looks Like The Future, Plays Like The Past

The Order: 1886 was released on a Friday and I beat it on the following Monday. In total it took me about 8 hours to beat on hard mode, which is at least better than the 5 1/2 hours it was rumored to take. People were angry about the length, but I thought it was a focused and well-paced experience. Is there anything wrong with that? Lots of games only have single player modes anyways, albeit more in past generations, but they are starting to make a comeback. Wolfenstein comes to mind as a recent single-player only, story driven experience, and I had a ton of fun with that. It was of course about twice as long though. Ignoring the time factor, The Order is filled with good and bad moments, like any other game.

In The Past

With a game featuring Nikola Tesla, you have got to expect to get some pretty interesting weapons / gadgets, and in this regard The Order does not disappoint. There are a multitude of weapons to choose from in the game and, for the most part, the gun play is pretty good. The aiming can be a bit floaty at times, and the cover system does go bananas when there are a little too many options around you, but it never frustrated me. What did frustrate me though was that your AI was practically useless to you, other than to shout out dangers of approaching shotgun guys, or that a grenade guy showed up. They never die, which was good, but it also seemed like they never shot anything either.

I got stuck for about 20-30 min on one sequence that reminded me of Uncharted. If you've ever played any of them, at some points there are these really difficult fights where it just seems like the enemies never stop showing up. This same thing was happening, but the only reason it was so hard was because of the shotgun guys. Those bastards just rush you and blast away. However, the problem is that if they hit you, the shotgun's stagger you, making you uncontrollable and exposed. On top of that, the shot guns are semi-automatic and can be shot pretty fast—essentially you are a dead man if they flood you. Any sequence with normal enemies was adequate, but throw a few rushing shotgunners at you and it drastically upped the difficulty.

There was a loose melee system in place as well; basically you run up and hit triangle and the guy dies in a very cinematic way. Speaking of things being done cinematically, there are a large amount of quick-time events in The Order too. Some people hate them but I never really had a problem with the use of QTEs if done right. Too many and it feels like that's all the game is about, but if there isn't nearly enough you never expect them and then you fail. It's a delicate balance, but with how well the cinematics were done in The Order, it was pretty entertaining.

To The Future

One thing that is going for The Order is the graphics; man, are those crisp! The animations are solid as well and while some people were a little worried about the frame rate locking at 30 fps (I was also worried about slowdown, because I remember seeing a few trailers were it looked evident) it actually holds up fantastically throughout the game. The effects were fantastic; the lighting, the fire, I could go on! One of the best looking games ever.

I've stated before that I believe the way stories are presented and told will take a more prominent role in this console generation and while the story in The Order was pretty interesting, it got caught up in one of those tropes I hate. You know where the main protagonist doesn't communicate properly with his allies, keeps everything to himself and then it all just blows up in his face leaving no one on his side. That was minor, lots of stories do that. The biggest issue I had with the story however was the lack of monsters. Watching any of the trailers, it seemed like this would be a spooky little monster hunter type of game. Van Helsing comes to mind. Instead what you get is about a dozen werewolves you fight throughout the game, that are actually pretty minor to the inter-political plot that is going on with The Order you belong to. It's their jobs to fight werewolves and what not, so seeing one just wasn't out of the ordinary. Like I said, the story was interesting, but I feel as though it was poorly branded by their marketing team and it became a missed opportunity.

Final Thoughts

Because everything has a secret ending nowadays, if you wait till after the initial credits you will be treated to a cinematic that sets up a sequel. The question is: Will Sony actually pursue one? I don't know what the sales look like, but The Order is currently sitting in the 60's on Metacritic. Personally I would gladly see one. There are a lot of minor things wrong with the game but I think it is better than the sum of its parts. If Ready at Dawn had a chance to expand on the story, make a longer campaign, add some multiplayer, and bring back those graphics, I think they would have a hit. Regardless of all this, as soon as it is free with PlayStation Plus, you can bet your ass that every single person will play it and see that it was probably worth their time in the first place.