The Order: 1886 is Atmospheric, Cinematic and Too Far Away

E3 2014: The Order: 1886 is Atmospheric, Cinematic and Too Far Away

Playing The Order: 1886 at E3 was kind of like eating a delicious meal just for the waiter to preemptively take my plate away without asking permission.

The brevity of the demo Sony had playable may have soured the experience I had with it, but what I played of Ready at Dawn’s alternative history action-adventure title whet my appetite for the game’s projected February 2015 release more than any other game at the show could claim.

The demo had protagonist Sir Galahad, along with other members of the game’s central organization called The Order, traveling through a section of the game’s depiction of London. As the game takes place in an version of the world which technology has progressed much faster than it was in real-life 1886, you’re thankfully not doing battles with muskets. In the game’s announcement trailer unveiled during last year’s E3, weapons capable of utilizing electricity were seen, and in this demo I was able to use the game’s “Thermite Rifle.” The Thermite Rifle allowed me to shoot a plethora of pellets toward groups of enemies and then shoot a flare at that area to ignite them. The Thermite Rifle is used to spread out quick and devastating damage across reasonably wide areas, taking out many enemy’s at once without staying exposed out of cover. I’m hoping that innovative weapon design and functions will be what The Order uses to separate its game play from similar games like Gears of War and the more recent Resident Evil titles.

Visually The Order is absolutely stunning. The demo looked just as beautiful in its spectacularly captured cutscenes as it did when it was actually running and I was in control. Ready at Dawn says that there’s no pre-rendered cutscenes in The Order and that everything is rendered in real-time. My only hope is that, as the full game progresses, the game will have a much more extensive color pallet outside of the gray and dreary scenery of London seen in the demo.

The interactions between the members of The Order were too brief to get a definitive idea of who everyone in Galahad’s squad were, but there were brief glimpses of what the dynamics of the relationship could be and I’m eager to learn more.

The Order is a blend of a gritty and melancholy atmosphere, cinematic presentation and weapons that add new strategies and dimensions to the third person shooter genre. Though my time with it was too brief for my liking, I’m eager to get my hands on the full game when it releases on February 20th of next year

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