Official Website


Publisher: Sony
Developer: Ready At Dawn
Release Date: 2/20/2015
















Reviews:


7.75/10 - GameInformer (Matt Miller)
While The Order: 1886 is a fun adventure with lots of intriguing reveals about the nature of its world, it’s also clear that Ready At Dawn intends for this to be the first game of a grander story. Players should brace themselves for a lot of unresolved character arcs and unanswered questions. This is an origin story, but a fascinating one. 1886 goes against the current tide of open-world wandering and emergent sequences, and banks on the idea that players can enjoy a straightforward and relatively brief cinematic adventure – if it’s well told and original. I hope Ready At Dawn is right; I’d love to see what happens in 1887.

6.5/10 - IGN (Brandon Tyrrel)
The basic conflict at the heart of The Order: 1886 is that considerations for a cinematic approach are prioritized above the needs of basic gameplay. Its best aspects are its stunning looks, atmosphere, and style – which are truly fantastic – and entertaining fiction. But the shallow, slow, and generic quick-time event-riddled gameplay make it feel like an experience that would've been better served by a non-interactive movie than a game. With no multiplayer, and no reason to revisit the short and stunted single-player campaign once it’s been completed, there just isn’t a lot to it.

3/5 - The Escapist (Justin Clouse)
Bottom Line: The Order: 1886 is bland gameplay wrapped in admittedly gorgeous next generation graphics. It's not bad through and through, it's just disappointing.

Recommendation: It's still pretty and serviceable enough for a playthrough, but you're better off renting it or borrowing it from a friend for the weekend.


6/10 - Destructoid (Chris Carter)
Outside of the sleek presentation and interesting world building, there's nothing truly special about The Order: 1886. It's a shame in many ways, because I'd love to see a more tactical style of gameplay in line with Valkyria Chronicles, or a more in-depth game in general using the same engine and lore. I sincerely hope this isn't the last we've seen of this universe, but for now, it's only worth visiting once, briefly.

5.5/10 - Polygon (Justin McElroy)
Galahad's story, such as it is, concludes so rapidly and with so few loose threads tied off, it's hard to shake the feeling that someone somewhere decided that it was time for the knight and his cohorts to get out into the world whether they were ready or not. Though it nails some of the fundamentals, The Order: 1886 has been released without answering the essential question of what it offers that other games aren't already doing better . Everything about the game's final shot screams "sequel set up," but unless The Order finds some non-aesthetic reasons to justify its existence, it's hard to imagine coming back for a second adventure.

5/10 - Gamespot (Kevin Vanord)
THE GOOD
*Fantastic voice acting
*Consistent, stylish visuals
*A couple of really cool weapons to play with

THE BAD
* Overlooks the best aspects of its premise in favor of boring storytelling
*Every gameplay element is drab and rote
*Too little of the cool stuff (guns, werewolves), lots of the dull stuff (looking at things, walking slowly)

4.5/10 - EGM (Andrew Fitch)
The Good
*The spectacular visuals, as impressive as anything on the PS4, paint an ahead-of-its-time Victorian London that feels researched and authentic.

The Bad
*Merely competent, mediocre, or outright bad in everything else it does.

The Ugly
*Britain still colonizes India even in this alternate timeline. (On a positive note, does that mean a werewolf-slaying Gandhi in the sequel?)

2/5 - Giantbomb (Jeff Gertsmann)
There are things here worth checking out, but the action feels half-cocked and you'll be finished with it in an afternoon. I won't pretend to guess at how much $60 means to you, dear reader, but I will say that The Order is a middling experience with a couple of bright flashes that only serve to remind you that this could be a more interesting game if more of its ideas were fully formed. If you're bent on seeing The Order for yourself, you should probably rent it.

8.2/10 GameTrailers (Daniel Bloodworth)
In the end, The Order: 1886 is truly an exciting spectacle in a setting that we thoroughly enjoy, elevating our expectations for PlayStation 4 games to come. However, it’s held back by its limited scope and abbreviated plot. It may not have the most well-rounded strengths, but it’s a remarkable game nonetheless.
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