The Order: 1886 Reviews
The game is our best example that we can play a movie. The fact that the movie in question is a leaden, unimaginative waste is almost incidental.
The Order: 1886 is a disappointing and short game that fails to live up to the hype that surrounds it. However, if you're willing to overlook its faults and sit through its abundance of lengthy cutscenes, you'll find that there's some fun to be had. It's fleeting, but it's there.
If the setting and lore of The Order: 1886 interest you at all, the game is at least worth a rental. Those hoping for a meaty, innovative experience however need not bother as the game wastes much of its potential on rehashed gameplay systems, an unsatisfyingly thin story, and a noticeable lack of long-term appeal.
Great visuals alone do not a great game make - and there's unfortunately very little in The Order: 1886 to elevate it beyond being a pretty, but shallow and insipid shooter. It commits the one sin no interactive entertainment should: it's painfully boring.
Overall, The Order: 1886 is an exceptional game that can be mistaken for a film as much as it can be for a game. Ready At Dawn achieved their mission of showing how a game can be great even when priorities lie in the visual, sound and plot departments.
The Order: 1886 is a dull, plodding experience that's beautiful to behold but spends too little time giving players a reason to stick around.
Yet, this is a high-quality first chapter of a promising new IP that fully deserves a chance from all lovers of an exceptional story and tight, fun cover shooting gameplay.
It's amazing the mileage The Order gets from its incredible presentation and world, but that goodwill is squandered by a title that's middling to poor in most other areas.
A stunning graphical showcase that can't hide a so-so game. The Order: 1886 has a great premise and a decent, albeit clichéd narrative, but the cost of its cinematic values comes in restrictive gameplay, mediocre shooting and an over-reliance on quick-time events. It's a fantastic looking game with which to show off your PS4, but it's too short and too unimaginative for its beauty to be anything more than skin-deep.
The Order: 1886 is a paper-thin PS4 launch title delivered 15 months behind schedule. It's nowhere near as profound or innovative as it thinks it is—the epitome of all style and no substance.
The Order: 1886 flaunts its interactive cinematic presentation, and it plays that card well. Despite this, it will continue to incite debate about overall length, being story heavy, and not allowing much freedom for the player. If these are things that bother you, then The Order was not developed for you. The decision will need to be where each player places value in their video games. This is an immersive game for people who want to sit back — or on the edge of their seat — and let themselves become engrossed in the story of a Knight in turmoil fighting against a supernatural force. Give The Order a go yourself, and perhaps you'll find yourself diving back into it as much as I've rewatched Jurassic Park over the last twenty years. It may not be perfect, but The Order: 1886 is an immersive cinematic experience and a damned good ride worth going back to.
"The Order" will likely become a long running franchise for Sony. It will be interesting to see how it evolves. It could stay in content with being a game that is only interested in presenting a cinematic story with gorgeous graphics, or it could evolve into a game that grants players with more creative freedom. Its current form is a step back from what modern games have become. "Shadow of Mordor," "Dragon Age" and "GTA V" achieved accolades because their settings were molded and enhanced by the player's freedoms. "The Order" feels confining. Galahad is trapped between the gorgeous buildings of London with nothing to do other than play out his story. The player has nothing to do but watch.
We need more game developers and publishers willing to gamble on made-from-scratch worlds and ideas, but The Order: 1886 feels like it might have fared better as a film, graphic novel or TV series. As a game, there's just not enough propping up this shining suit of armour.
The Order: 1886 is more cohesive than the 15-year story arc of Quantic Dream's last effort, but cohesion doesn't automatically result in a compelling experience. It succeeds so well in playing out like the middle episode of an unmade series that it forgets to delve deeper into the otherwise fascinating Arthurian lore and its 19th century context.
The Order: 1886 will embrace you in a unmatched cinematic experience and the shooting mechanics are solid. The overall short time you are actually "playing" the game is a major disappointment. There are no advancement options for weapons and the only collectibles in the game are audio logs, photographs and newspapers. There are trophies for finding them all, but no indicator of which items you may have missed. Let me be clear: I did enjoy my time spent with the title, but with no clear reason to trek through the adventure multiple times, combined with the fact it can be beaten in a single afternoon, The Order: 1886 is a rental at best.
This is a game and a concept that could benefit from a sequel. And if we're lucky, it'd give us an even deeper look at this gorgeous yet squalid Dickensian London.
Regardless of quantity concerns (which is a valid complaint), where The Order more crucially falls apart is in regards to quality. It does not matter if a game is one or one hundred hours long, you need to enjoy playing it, and The Order fails at that most crucial of tasks. This is unforgivable, and instantly makes it impossible to recommend.
The Order arrives as a short, decent game, not a console savior.
Entropy wins out in the end
The lack of balance between gameplay and cinematics drags The Order: 1886 down. It's not a bad game but you will find better third person shooters on the market than The Order: 1886.