The Order: 1886 Review

Have you ever wondered what an alternative world of London in 1886 would be like? You know with cool guns and drinks that heal your wounds instantly and werewolves. Yeah, let’s go there. Oh hey look! Nikola Tesla! Welcome to the world of The Order: 1886.

TheOrderLogoI found myself interested in this game when it’s trailer was shown at either the Sony Conference or at E3 last year. I have always been interested in alternative worlds and the what if scenarios. So this was going on my must buy list. But I wasn’t going to spend $60 on it. I waited till it was on sale and then I got it.

The Order: 1886 takes place in an alternative London where there are Half-Breed roaming all over the place and The Order must take care of the problem. Here’s my beef with the story: it is your typical crap goes down, you found out the company you’re working for knows what is going on but refuses to let you dig deeper, you go with the enemy to find the truth, you get in trouble, you leave, you fight the real enemy, and nothing is resolved. I’ve seen this too many times in books and movies that I find it all a bit lackluster.

2400600-7112790105-The-OThe pace of the story is too fast and it makes the game way too short. I beat it in two days but it can easily be beaten in one. The game has 16 chapters with a prologue and epilogue. Most of the chapters are just cutscenes with little to no player input. The ratio of cutscenes to gameplay is very off putting. There is very little exploration and because of that, I was slightly disappointed. There are collectibles to be found since there are three trophies just for finding collectibles, but good luck finding them. You will forget all about finding collectibles and just work towards finishing the game.

Combat is the same as in any other game I have played. It’s your standard guns and grenades galore and you fight waves of enemies. The Order does add something new: blacklight and alternative fire. Alternative fire is basically a blast of air sending the enemies back a bit. I ended up not using the attack after the first use of it. Blacklight is essential though. Blacklight slows down time to allow you to get multiple shots on an enemy. Whenever I was stuck in battle and kept on dying over and over again, I ended up using blacklight to get out of my jam.

CRE0189 The Order PSX Assets 2 201 F3517There are two weapons unique to The Order: the Arc Induction Lance and the Thermite Rifle. I did not care for either weapon but both are useful in a jam. The Arc Induction Lance is a gun that you charge up for a short time then let go of the trigger for a powerful blast. Needless to say, the gun needs better instructions. The game tells you to charge it but it never said for how long and that I needed to let go of the trigger for it to shoot. Thanks game… Now for Thermite Rifle. It is a gun that first shoots out some sort of thermite liquid and with a different trigger, it shoots a flare igniting your target. It takes a while getting used to this gun but it does help a lot with clearing enemies.

The Order: 1886 doesn’t really have any replay value to it. The moment I finished it, I finished it for good. I never want to replay it again unless I really want to go through the stealth portion of it again…

The Order: 1886 is a good game but is extremely short with more cutscenes than gameplay. I would recommend it to anyone who loves alternative worlds as much as I do. The game’s story does seem to lead up to a possibility of a sequel but who knows.

The Order: 1886

3.5 / 5

Too many cutscenes, game is too short, and really no replay value. But I love the alternative London world!

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