The Order: 1886
Beast Enders
Release Date: OUT NOW!
Platform: PS4 Publisher: Sony Computer Entertainment
There have
been fewer examples of the classic disparity between graphics and gameplay in recent years. The prettiest games have also tended to deliver the goods mechanically, with such consistency it’s created a Pavlovian reflex towards visual fidelity as an indicator of overall excellence. In the case of The Order: 1886, it’s a misleading reflex indeed.
Tell people about all the game’s pacing issues, its choking linearity and bizarre design calls, and still they all want to play it.
The Order is beautiful on every level – not just its extraordinary lighting, material rendering and post- processing, but in the alt- history world it depicts. The industrial age is accelerated by electricity, and humans are split by genetic mutations which render some as bestial “half- breeds”. The twin prongs of developer Ready At Dawn’s thoughtful and tangible parallel dimension and the scarcely believable fidelity of its RAD 4.0 engine don’t disappoint. Everything else does.
The intention here is apparently to blend action/ adventure gameplay with something more cinematic. As such, the lines between cutscenes and gameplay are consistently blurred – the former all occur in- engine so there’s no visual disconnect between the two. It also means your level of interaction in a given scene is often reduced to walking from point to point, perhaps examining an object before triggering either a gunfight or a cutscene. Occasionally you’re given more freedom – maybe you’ll pick locks, execute melee takedowns or manipulate the scenery – but these moments account for a notable minority of the overall experience.
Okay, fine. So it’s a movie. So is everything Telltale has released for the last two years. But where Telltale adventure games offer dialogue choice, decisions with consequences and characters you care about, The Order doesn’t. It isn’t fully committed to either interactive drama or action/ adventure, so ends up unable to meet your expectations of either. It’s reasonably successful as a cover-shooter, but there are huge compromises evident here, too.
The Order’s certainly worth your eyes, if not your money. Just don’t expect anything deeper than a nine- hour wonder- tech showcase. Visually it’s everything you could have hoped for, but the compromises required to reach that fidelity are hugely damaging. Phil Iwaniuk Released a week after Kingsman: The Secret Service, this also features modern‑day knights using Arthurian names.
Certainly worth your eyes, if not your money