The Order: 1886 is a third person shooter taking place in an alternate London during the year 1886. It is heavy on the story elements. A large chunk of the game will be spent watching cutscenes, and another large chunk involving walking, interacting with objects, and QTEs.
The shooting elements are fun in their own right. The game is a cover shooter and the mechanics works well. You use the left trigger to aim and the right trigger to shoot. You’re able to equip two weapons at once, a one handed pistol and a dual handed heavy weapon like shotguns and rifles. While there are a variety of weapons in the game, each chapter limits you to whatever the enemy drops. There are some additional special abilities that are pretty stock standard in shooters these days. You’re able to throw grenades, as well as the blacksight ability, which slows down time while it auto-aims at the enemy.
Your enemies are normally humans, but there are also half-breeds. Half-breeds are the supernatural element of the game; these are effectively werewolves and require slightly different strategies. They move faster and can take more bullets. Unfortunately, they’re only fun at first as each encounter with them does not change from the first. You just shoot, dodge, and then a QTE to kill them. The game has you controlling Galahad and from time to time, it disables the ability to run. This is extremely annoying since the default walking speed is slow and there is no reason for them to do this. You’ll constantly lose control of your character as it splits off into a cutscene, which can be frustrating especially since the gameplay feels so light as a result.
The game tries to shove in a few gameplay elements that do not gel well together. The constant QTEs to open doors and interact with objects is irritating. The slow walk is unbearable, and the simple platforming (such as climbing a ledge) is clunky and boring. The best parts are the larger gunfights and even then, it doesn’t try anything groundbreaking. The stealth sections are laughably easy. Each guard has a predictable path that they will dutifully walk on. No two guards ever cross paths so you can safely kill each one without fear of being discovered.
The biggest thing going for the game is the graphics. Upon its release, it is not an exaggeration to say that it was the best looking game on the PS4. However, having only good graphics does not make a good game and it was heavily criticized for it. The reason for the weaker gameplay and focus on graphics is due to its emphasis on the story. Galahad is part of The Order of Knights that helps keep London safe. The half-breeds are surging in numbers and their attacks have become more frequent. Galahad suspects something is afoot and investigates this along with the increase in anti-government attacks by the rebels. The game has a slow prologue which introduces the controls.
There are whole chapters of the game which are only comprised of cutscenes. It seems to get worse at the game goes on, grating on your nerves. For a game with so many cutscenes, it is good that the story is semi-decent. It captures your attention and the alternate London, with a higher sci-fi element, is intriguing. The plot transforms from a “hunt down the enemy rebels and monsters” into something a bit more political as Galahad starts to quest The Order to which he belongs in. To emphasize the story heavy nature, the game doesn’t play in a typical 16:9 aspect ratio. It plays in a ratio that is more like a movie, so there are black borders above and below the image. This is distracting and unnecessarily restricts your visibility.
The ending is weak. The final boss ends up being yet another lazy QTE event while the story doesn’t wrap up very well. It could have gone more deeply into the consequences of what Galahad had discovered and what it meant for The Order. Instead, the whole game felt like Galahad investigated the rebels and half-breeds, found out that this involved something within The Order, and then he eliminated them. The game takes 6-8 hours to finish and it isn’t really as short as you would have feared. Granted, there is a lot of filler content like making Galahad walk slow, and the various QTEs to advance. There are collectibles but annoyingly, there is no tracker which defeats the purpose of them, unless you’re going for the Trophy achievement.
Overall, for full price upon its release, The Order: 1886 is not worth it. On sale, or the discounted price years after its release, the game still has something to offer. The graphics remain stellar and the story is intriguing if ultimately unsatisfying.
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