The Order 1886 Hands on Impressions.
Developer Ready at Dawn
Publisher Sony
Platform PS4
Release Date Feb 20th 2015
We got a chance to get some hands on time with The Order 1886, this was still an early build of the game so we had anticipated some small problems, or lack of polish, but we’re happy to report that we encountered very little wrong with the play through. The game itself looks incredible (even at this stage) with seamless transitioning from cut scene to gameplay speaking volumes for the quality we can expect.
Publishers description:
The Order: 1886 re-writes history by introducing a unique vision of Victorian-Era London where myths and technology co-exist. As a member of an elite order of knights, join a centuries-old war that will determine the course of history forever.
Conflict rages in this version of 19th century London. In the middle of it is a secret order of Knights engaged in a centuries-long war, sworn to protect humanity from all that threatens it. Rebels have declared all-out war on the British Monarchy. In the newest demo we find the Knights on a mission to infiltrate an airship and prevent a plot against Lord Hastings, a member of the House of Lords and the leader of the United India Company.
Our thoughts:
Graphically The Order 1886 is very impressive, I was often left standing still like an idiot on more than one occasion as I thought I was still watching the cut scene, but in fact the game had moved onto a gameplay section that I was meant to be controlling (there really is little between them). Like many other similar games (God of War, Ryse Son of Rome) the high levels of production come at a cost to gameplay which tends to be very locked in. Even though the section I played through would be the kind of setting and location (an airship) that calls for tight corridors there really is limited space to explore. This was tight, focused gameplay and I don’t expect much to change for the rest of the game.
Timed button presses to kick off an animation are used a lot, for example If you sneak up on enemies you have to hit the Triangle button just at the right time to be put into a kill animation, missing the prompt will result in an instant death. Similarly if you walk to a door with a prompt and press X it puts you into the animation of walking through that door. Using this for interacting with inanimate objects is ok, it is less appealing when dealing with combat situations. While this allows the developers to maintain control over the high quality it does takes from the natural flow of the character through the world.
Quick Time Events also reared their ugly head, this was used during a close quarter’s combat section where once more missing the prompt resulted in instant death. I fear it is not the last we will see of it but all was not lost as there was a particularly exhilarating “more traditional gun battle” later on which was much closer to what I hoped for, a duck and cover, blast and move affair.
New IP like any game can be tricky to preview. This is a title we are quiet interested in, the sample play-through alleviated many fears but I have to be fair and say it created new ones too. Much like Ryse I think I will enjoy The Order 1886 and have no doubt that it will look and play incredibly well, but much like Ryse its limited gameplay and lack of really being in control could hold it back from being something really great.
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