First of all, let me start by saying that much of the criticism that is being reported surrounding The Order: 1886 is overblown. It’s not as short as is being reported, if there was a graphics downgrade, I couldn’t see it, and the admittedly large amount of cutscenes never come close to the dreaded level of the Metal Gear Solid or Xenosaga series. Besides, the rest of the internet has been voicing these concerns nearly a week now.
Second, this isn’t a traditional review. If you care at all about the buzz surrounding this game, you’re likely going to scroll straight down in search of a score, and decide that I either had a vindictive grudge against Sony, that I was parroting the crowd by sharing my disappointment with the game, or that I’m solidifying the fact that the title is just not that good. Instead, I’m focusing on the numerous issues throughout the campaign that most people AREN’T talking about. If only game length was the biggest letdown during my trek through this reimagined England.
And third, there are minor spoilers contained within this critique. If you haven’t played it and care about the story, turn back now! From this point on, you’re stepping into the danger zone.
If you follow gaming and have been on the Internet AT ALL over the past week, then you’ve probably heard more than you need to about The Order: 1886. Originally revealed during the PS4’s unveiling at E3 2013, February 20th was supposed to be the day that the PS4 received its first exclusive since Driveclub, (remember how that went?), and arguably the first AAA exclusive since InFamous: Second Son. Instead, the game has been panned for its alleged five hour length, almost have of which is speant watching rather than shooting Lycans like we were originally promised.
Now, I’d be lying if I said that I was particularly excited for the title. I’ve been cautious of the Sony PR machine ever since the now infamous PS3 reveal and the Killzone 2 trailer, made worse by the fact that nearly every major company seems to have jumped on the bandwagon of overpromising and underdelivering. Still, the concept of a reimagined 19th Century England where an elite team of soldiers hunt supernatural monsters with some highly creative weaponry seemed like something I should check out at some point. This curiosity was further peaqued when I found a used copy the day after release date. With a seven day return policy and nothing to lose, my worries quickly become justified. I’ve shared my thoughts on game length in the past, (which can be found here,) so I won’t talk about it too much here, but the laundry list of what The Order does wrong deserves equal attention for the gamer who’s on the fence.
First off, I want to turn this into a positivity sandwich, beginning and ending with something good, with the meaty bad parts in the middle. The most apparent positive, (and seemingly the focus of development), is the presentation, with some incredible visuals, smoke effects when shooting, and facial animations leading the charge. Accompanied with some brilliant costume design, architecture and voice acting, it really helps make the game spring to life, as if you were watching a movie. Sadly, this is just about the only thing The Order gets right, with a slew of questionable design choices, large gaps between game play sections and too many broken promises. So without further ado…
The run of the mill third person gameplay.
Taking its inspiration from titles like Uncharted 2 and Gears Of War, The Order is primarily a third person cover shooter when it’s not doing its best Heavy Rain impersonation. The initial trailers showed the Knights of the Order fighting off monsters with electric rail guns, but sadly, you only do this for a miniscule amount of time in the game, (but more on that in a little bit.) Instead, the large majority of the shooting sections are against regular ol’ people. Throughout the entire game, I counted a total of four human enemy types, generously counting the standard soldiers, armored soldiers, snipers and grenaders as separate units. Sure, the costumes change, but the gameplay doesn’t.
As if to remedy the long gaps between shooting sections, (the longest one being about 35 minutes on my count,) some of these gunfights take the form of insanely long waves of bullet sponge enemies, none of which have checkpoints in between. I even had a few guys continue to charge at me with a bloody forehead after surviving a direct head shot, which I’m assuming was just a weird glitch. Then again, I don’t hold the resilient enemies against the game too much since I was playing on Hard Mode.
While it’s definitely true that the often quoted five hour play time is a gross misrepresentation of the average run, my nine hour hard mode run would have been easily cut to about seven on normal, without trophy hunting, or with decent checkpoints, especially when your partners rarely lift a finger to help. This is what’s most disappointing, turning a promising concept into a status quo shooter that doesn’t try to be better than what the genre has offered for the last decade. But again, it wouldn’t be so bad if we weren’t promised so much.
The lack of science weapons.
Remember those bad-ass sci-fi weapons from the trailers? Appropriately named “Science Weapons”, these guns include said electric rail gun mentioned above, as well as an amazingly creative flame rifle that shoots a flammable powder before launching a fireball into it, engulfing the entire area. And well… That’s it! Two whole science weapons, both of which rarely pop up in the campaign. I’m completely serious when I say that I got roughly 30-40 minutes of in game time with these guns, whereas the rest of the story was full of never before seen weapons such as the elusive pistol, shotgun, grenade and rifle. Maybe they’re saving them for the sequel?
The lack of Lycans.
But the biggest disappointment that 1886 presents is its troubling lack of Lycans. You know, those werewolves that the game was initially sold on? Well, I would try to explain the sad amount of the flagship enemies within the game with a well thought out paragraph, but why do that when I can let the game’s OWN IN GAME TROPHY describe it for me?
THE HUNTER: Kill 10 Lycans
Yup, 10 WHOLE LYCANS for the entire game. The sad part? I counted eight, (ten including bosses.) Compared to the hundreds of humans that oppose you, how was this game ever presented the way it was initially? It doesn’t help that not only are they poorly placed in the story, (one, then two in Chapter One’s lycan tutorial, two towards the end and three in the last stage,) and that their AI is completely braindead. They literally run away from you, run at you, lunge, (which can be easily dodged by tapping X,) then run away again. The only other attack that they have only triggers if you’re standing right next to them, but you would practically have to go out of your way to do so.
Jumping on grenades.
Speaking of pressing X to dodge, the same can be done when you’re near a grenade. It’s a good thing the armor forged in 1886 is much more durable than the armor of today, because as long as you’re in your dodge animation, you don’t take damage from it, even if you roll right on top of it when it explodes.
The boss fight(s).
One complaint I constantly have with most modern games is that the boss fight has seemingly disappeared. Thankfully, I can’t issue this complaint towards The Order, since it features not one, but two whole boss battles in the middle and the end of the game. So why is this in the meaty portion of our sandwich under negatives? Because the final boss and the mid boss are the Exact. Same. Fight. Same attacks, same animations, same character model, (despite being different characters,) same everything.
Essentially combining a long series of quick time events with the mechanics of Punch Out, the entire thing consists of dodging and responding with a quick or heavy attack, neither of which had any strategic difference from what I could see. Fairly exciting the first time, immensely disappointing the second time, I just don’t get why the team didn’t think the end game deserved more attention.
The stealth.
The good news? There are only two major stealth sections the entire game, the first acting as the tutorial and the second being separated from its introduction by about five hours. The bad news is that especially during the second one, it just doesn’t work. Mainly because your character carries his bowgun at the ready while he’s sneaking. Only problem is that he only stealth kills with his knife. With their unwavering commitment to realism at Ready At Dawn, I suffered many a death because I couldn’t initiate my stealth kill until my character put away his gun to grab his blade. With no manual way to do so, (or at least with no instruction on how to assuming the option exists,) the attack wouldn’t trigger and I’d eat a bullet, (in a cutscene, of course.)
The collectables.
Correct me if I’m wrong, but as far as I can remember, games have universally had a way to track what kind of bonus items you’ve picked up, right? Especially when there are trophies tied to them, with most modern games providing status updates showing your progress. Ever the innovator, The Order felt the need to be different. Not only does it not keep track of what bonus items you’ve found aside from the audio cylinders, but your character doesn’t even keep them! He puts them back down where he finds them! Especially with the newspapers, the text is so small that it’s impossible to read! So you’re literally picking stuff up and putting it back down.
To make matters worse, going back to find what you might have missed is a wild goose chase, since the game lacks a chapter breakdown of what collectables you’re missing and/or which chapters they’re missing in. All of them respawn on subsequent playthroughs, making it impossible to know what you missed and what you didn’t, and with the cutscenes being unskippable, it makes the hunt too tedious to be worth it. You’re better off with a guide so you don’t have to scour the entire game again.
The cliché, by the numbers story.
Yet, The Order isn’t the only game that favors a cinematic experience over strong game play. But if you’re going to take that route, at least make the story good. Instead, what 1886 presents us with is a cliché tale that relies on tropes rather than unique scenarios. The mentor who promises to enlighten you about the true nature of the world after the battle is over, only to die before he says anything? Yep, he’s there. The friend who double crosses you almost immediately declaring that your character, “trusts him with his life,”? Present. The perceived villain who’s really the hero? You get the picture. You can guess most of these character’s roles as soon as you hear them speak during some long, drawn out cutscenes, making most of the characters uninteresting and forgettable. It doesn’t help that only a few of them have any kind of backstory, and the ones that do are just vaguely touched on.
Worse yet is the walking. Oh god, the walking! Oftentimes, to give us breaks between full motion videos, we’ll get to “play” by manually walking through long hallways or corridors while the team members converse. Your option to run is taken away, so you’re just forced to plod through while staring at these mundane walls, wishing that this would’ve just been sped through a video.
So. Much. Walking.
But more importantly, the game completely fails to adequately explain the lore of this universe. It hints at things here and there, but in almost arrogant fashion, it feels like The Order is far more interested in setting up sequels than it is in establishing the current game. We know that Lycans and Vampires exist. Nikolai Tesla is to you what Q is to 007 for some reason. Your order of knights have been alive for centuries, apparently? The fact that there’s a story reason for why you can revive yourself and auto heal behind cover, but it’s not explained until past the half way point, shows that establishing the rules of this world came second to getting through the contained narrative of this particular game, which makes it come off as if we’re expected to know what’s going on before we start playing it. When the credits roll, we’re left with more questions than answers, with an apparent setup for a second AND third game before the first one felt anywhere near established.
But hey, at least it doesn’t have a 100 GB day one patch!
Have you played The Order? We’d love to hear your thoughts, where you agree, and where you disagree. Let us know in the comments, and hit me up @InuJoshua and let’s talk about it!