The Order: 1886 review

Intro

A short review for a short game. The Order: 1886 is a relatively old game; it was released in 2015 as a Playstation Only game. I recently got a hold of this game and finished it within a couple of days.

Story

There are games in which the story is a side issue (think Conan Exiles) and there are games which revolve around the story. The Order: 1886 falls into this last category. It’s such a heavy story-based game that it’s like you’re watching a movie. You’re literally watching minutes of cutscenes between the parts where you actually play the game.

You play as Sir Galahad, a knight of the Round Table in an alternate steampunk history London. The Order of Knights protect the world against monsters like werewolves and vampires. So far, it’s pretty straightforward: you are the good guy fighting evil monsters. Or is it?

To be honest, I quickly drop out when stories revolve around Orders and governments and stuff and such is the case in this game. A lot of information is thrown at you during the cutscenes and the vague opening sequence of the game doesn’t help either. The better half of the game I played not really knowing why I was shooting other people or the occasional werewolf.

There are rebels fighting against the Order of Knights, but they are also fighting the werewolves. After completing the game, I have a vague idea of what’s going on but the ending of the game leaves you with more questions than answers.

Apart from the difficult story, the setting is great. It’s all dark and gloomy with very believable characters. The references to real world events make the game fun to play. Jack the Ripper and Nikola Tesla are great examples of this. They are skillfully woven through the story in very “Ubisoft’s Assassin’s Creed”-way.

Story rating: 7

Gameplay

In the moments where you’re not watching cutscenes, you are shooting or sneaking around enemies. With a large arsenal of weaponry, the gunplay fun and varied. The combat can be hard as there are quite some enemies per battle and you can only take a few shots before fainting. If there are no enemies around to finish you, you can revive yourself once. When not taking damage, you also heal so when playing smartly cover-based (as is the nature of the game), it’s very doable.

I often got surprised by quicktime-events during cutscenes in which I suddenly had to press a certain button to not die. It might be me getting old, but most of the times I was too late. Luckily, there’s always a checkpoint right before such an event so it was never really annoying.

Almost all important moments in the games involved quicktime-events. This took the tension somewhat out of the game for me because I knew a cutscene would start playing when I reached a certain point.

Gameplay rating: 7

Graphics

The dark setting of the game is very well crafted. Since the game is very lineair, the developers could add a lot of detail to the places you visit. The characters are beautifully created and really connect with the player. The cutscenes are really good. I often put my controller on the table and just sat back to watch the “movie”. The transitions from cutscene to actual gameplay were also so fluent, I only figured the game required my input because Sir Galahad was standing still too long for no reason.

Graphics rating: 9

Audio

The voice acting in this game is brilliant. Like I said before, it really was like watching a movie. The environmental sounds were on par as well. No complaints here.

Audio rating: 8

Memorable

This was a nice quick game in between some other games for me. Due to the short and difficult story with a stupid ending I don’t find it a very memorable game. Only Sir Galahad stays with me because he has a certain Batman-like attitude and a cool name.

Memorable rating: 5

Conclusion

Buy it on budget with the expectations to watch a movie and you’re golden. The Order: 1886 is all about the story. And the story is extensive, maybe a bit too much. In between the cutscenes, you walk from point A to point B and kill some enemies on the way. That’s really all there is to it, but the more you understand the story, the more fun the game is to play.