The Order: 1886 will be the most graphically outstanding game yet on the PS4 when it launches at the end of this week. The third-person shooter is set in a steampunk, victorian-era London, where you take control of the Knights Templar in their battle against inhuman foes. The game plays a lot like Gears of Wars, a cover-based third-person shooter, but it's a very cinematic ride with lots of stunning cutscenes and action segments mixed in.
We've played a demo of the game and chatted to the developers, and it's certainly looking like one of our most anticipated titles on the PS4. Plus you can read our full review of the game right here on this page before The Order: 1886 is released this weekend.
THE ORDER: 1886 PLAYING TIME
There's been a lot of discussion online about the playing length of the final game. Rumours abounded, and were denied by the developers, that the game could be completed in just three and-a-half hours. A playthrough has now appeared online in which the game looks to be completed in about five hours, see videos below.
We've taken a quick flick through the footage online and can say that the gameplay is pretty representative of how a normal person would play the game. It's pretty direct, in that the player clearly knows what to do next, and we didn't see any player deaths, but it's not a speed run with every corner being cut. Add a couple of hours on for regular levels of incompetence (more on harder difficulty levels) and you'll get around 7-8 hours out of it we'd think.
Now that's not a big game, but The Order: 1886 is absolutely sumptious-looking from beginning to end. More problematic is a lack of any multiplayer modes, either competitive or co-operative. A simple horde mode in which you had to fend off waves of attackers could have hugely increased the replayability of the game, without the need to add a fully-fledged multiplayer game.
THE ORDER: 1886 VIDEOS
The above mentioned playthrough has now appeared online, and you can access it by heading over to PlayMeThrough: The Order 1886 Gameplay Walkthrough. However, we should stress that the page contains spoilers, in the form of chapter headings only, and that obviously you could well be ruining the game for yourself by watching the videos.
Offical trailers include this E3 trailer came from Galahad's point fo view and talks of himself as an enternal soldier, a knight who protects teh innocent, but who has started to doubt his path. He even doubts teh very existence of god. it's pretty chilling stuff and the voiceover is set against some tough-looking enemies, namely the Lycans , who seem to make up the main foe in the game, or at least what we've seen of it.
^ This trailer shows that you can make a largely colourless game look great, watch this fuller gameplay demo too, which was part of Sony's E3 press conference
More recently we've had this trailer from the viewpoint of Nikola Tesla, a name taken from the real-life inventor who made huge strides forward in electricity, mainly in the late 19th Century. While many of the other knights seem to be practically immortal, Tesla is new to the group and brings his technological flair. The group appears to have air support, though maybe only in custscenes, dropped from zeppelins above, and we get to stealth kills and some sniper rifle action in this trailer.
^ Telsa looks to be the new boy and so should help explain the player understand the Order's history
And from just last week we have a load of pre-release trailers that you can watch over on the PlayStation Order 1886 Playlist, including this one, which contains lots of story hints:
^ Want some story hints, without any big spoliers, then this will do you fine
THE ORDER: 1886 RELEASE DATE
We've complained often and loudly about Sony's lack of exclusives titles to date, see Xbox One vs PS4 for details. One of the key reasons for this is that The Order: 1886 slipped from last year until now. The game is finally being released though, this Friday the 20th Feburary 2015. As we've already noted, the game isn't looking to be the longest, so you hsould get through it over the weekend, and that said the patient may want to wait a week or two to pick up one of the inevitable deluge of second-hand copies.
THE ORDER: 1886 HANDS ON REVIEW
Having watched those trailers, it's easy to speculate why the game slipped. We've played a short demo, one that is packed with content, which suggests to us that the sheer quantity and quality of assets required was taking longer than originally conceived. An extended demo behind closed doors and a chat to CEO Ru Weerasuriya and CTO Andrea Pessino, though, helped sharpen our concept of the game as a whole and also hinted at the reasons for the delay.
As you can see from this demo, there's some incredible lighting and material work here. The team spent years developing a global system fro materials, allowing them to make tweaks across, say, all the iron objects in the game by changing one variable - although all those objects would still look different as they'd have different marks and rust placed upon them.
The light glinting off the tiled walls of the hospital looks incredible, its brilliantly diffused and the real-time shadows are amazing. Both the characters and creatures are incredibly detailed - horrifically lifelike in respect to the latter. The human characters have been fully performance captured. Every motion, every line of dialogue and every facial expression, whether in live gameplay or a cutscene has originated from a performance capture session with a real actor.
And you can tell, with even our shot time with them showcasing little glances, hesitancies and nervousness. Our heroes are certainly on the back foot, as one says upon the death of a policeman: "Save your prayers ... there's no god to hear them." And you can see a dogged resolve in the face of what looks to be a very grim situation.
The gunplay looks to shaping up well, with fast and vicious firefights
The game as we've seen it is largely split into two elements, tactical gunplay and more cinematic action set pieces. Though the two are well blended, cutting from one to the other effortlessly to keep the story moving along. And it's keeping the story moving that its developers are keen to do, it's certainly a linear tale, something that would usually worry us, but when it's told with such poise it's hard to argue. In fact with most games most games going down an open world route, having something more directed is a nice change of pace.
STEAM CLEANER
The demo we got to play was essentially two small firefights with a cinematic section in between. You play as Grayson, here using a Thermite Gun, which fired harmless clouds of white powder with R2, and then a flare with R1 that ignited them into a raging inferno. it's great to see the PS4's much-vaunted graphics chip being used to realise a weapon in such spectacular fashion. We had a lot fun coating an area in thermite before lighting it all up in one huge blast.
Grayson's key skill involves a drink from the Black Water vial around his neck - the liquid has magic properties and is key to the game's setting and plot, both healing and extending lifespans. Here, though, it produced a bullet time state in which you can instantly lock onto a series of targets and execute them with your pistol, reminiscent of takedowns in the recent Splinter Cell games.
The Thermite Gun is the first gun we know of that requires using both fire and alt-fire to actually hurt someone
Beyond that the action is pretty typical of a cover shooter, and certainly has none of the RPG complications and detail of say The Division. There's a neatly fitted set piece in the middle though, where you have to pull an injured policeman into cover, movement here is automated leaving you to pick off oncoming goons with your pistol. it only lasts a few seconds but it's more engaging than simply running through a door to get to the next section.
AN AMERICAN WEARWOLF IN (GOTHIC) LONDON
We also got to see an extended version of the gameplay demo shown as the PS4 press conference. Here Grayson encounters a Lycan for the first time, the powerful, man-cum-beast creatures that are the main bad guys. Andrea told us that his transformation from man to beast isn't a trick but an actual real-time effect with the geometry shifting into the new, larger creature.
Our demo took a lot more time to explore the rooms of the hospital than the one you may have seen. There's a gramophone record giving you details of an autopsy you ccan listen to, and a madman in a cell you can listen to rambling too, both will apparently flesh out the story and even provide hints to your play. The detail in the hospital is genuninely remarkable with the contents of sample jars being of particular grisly note. We were also rather keen on the parquet flooring, something we never thought we'd write in a games preview.
Once the action kicks off, things do get very linear, and any missteps by the player result in an instant and brutal demise. Our extended demo took the fight upstairs, where we saw a quick-time-event to get a metal gate shut before the creature breaks through. Too many such quick-time-events could put off some players we think.
Cinematic events can be exciting, but the developer will need to keep the player in control of the game, and not vice versa, with Resident Evil 4 setting the benchmark still for games of this ilk. And it's a game that intermediately comes to mind when Grayson comes across a creature gnawing on a body.
The developers did confirm that the section with this 'Lycan' was the big introductory set-piece for the creature. The creatures reappear of course, but then as regular enemies you fight while in full control, rather than in a series of set pieces. Guns appear ineffective against them, but Ru wouldn't let slip what the secret is of taking down these beasts.
We also asked about the length of the game, and though no figure was mentioned, Ru said the game was actually getting longer at present, as they are happy enough with some sections to feel that they could work over longer periods.
CONCLUSION
We're very hopeful about The Order: 1886, the lack of multiplayer and a focus on story looks to be creating a highly cinematic game that differs from many of its competitors. It may not please those who value freedom and competition over a good yarn, but we certainly feel there's space for both, and it's good to have games that don't require you to invest 50 hours in order to get to the end too.
Available formats: PlayStation 4