Review: 'The Order: 1886' Is Gorgeous but Can’t Find the Gameplay Grail

The Order: 1886 has a killer pitch.

The first big PS4 exclusive of 2015 is set in a steampunk version of Victorian England policed by gruff, gun-toting descendants of the Knights of the Round Table. Werewolves are running amuck, Jack the Ripper is Jack the Rippering, and the only thing standing between chaos and order is you, your crew of fellow knights, and your hefty wrought-iron ordnance. Also, there are zeppelins.

It’s a fine setup for an action game, and when it’s cooking, The Order: 1886 is quite a sight. But even virtues like great graphics and an intriguing setting mean little when you can’t find the holy Grail of fun: interesting gameplay.

Your quest drops you in the clunky boots of Sir Galahad, the latest in a long line of Galahads descended from the real deal. Black Water, a substance infused with superjuice from the Grail, gives each knight an extended lifespan. Once they crap out for good, the name is passed down to a new knight. There are no seat fillers at the Round Table.

Galahad and his cohorts are tasked with snuffing out Half-Breeds (werewolves) and quelling a rebellion threatening the crown. The story is a good one, at least initially. History buffs will get a kick out of watching Nikola Tesla show up as the Q gadget guy to Galahad’s Bond, and the first act does a nice job of setting up the conflicts and major players. But in short order the plot bobs and weaves like a punch-drunk heavyweight, shifting from thread to thread so erratically that the whole thing becomes a jumbled mess a few hours in.

What stays consistent, however, is its staggeringly good looks. The Order: 1886 is a technical tour de force. Steampunk London is breathtaking, an appropriately dreary blend of soot and science that looks familiar but feels fresh and new. You’ll marvel at the impressive fidelity of the knights and werewolves, the realistic animations, and the unbelievably smooth transitions from prerendered cut-scene to playable action. Excellent voice work and a moody score bring it home. Developer Ready at Dawn spared no expense here. It’s a showstopper.

Except, that is, when you have to actually play it.

Each chapter begins with you wandering London’s streets, rooftops, or underground, but before you can say “It’s just a flesh wound,” you’re whipping out a gun, ducking behind a wall, and playing Gears of War.

I only barely mean that figuratively. The Order’s gameplay rarely moves beyond the cover-based mechanics popularized by Gears in 2006, requiring players to hide, shoot, reload, find new cover, and shoot again. You usually do this in tight quarters, which turns each firefight into a straightforward shooting gallery.

This dated design extends to other parts of The Order, too. When you aren’t fighting, you’re walking through linear corridors, opening locked doors via two simple mini-games, and looking for notes (marked with a PlayStation triangle) to pick up and examine. Weirdly, you don’t do anything with these slips of paper beyond staring at them for a few seconds, finding nothing of particular interest, flipping them over, finding nothing of interest on the back either, and putting them down. Apparently, knights don’t have pockets.

Why are these notes there? What purpose do they serve? You don’t learn much more about the world, you don’t get insightful story exposition, and you don’t get hints about the location of, say, hidden weapon caches. You just get a blurry photograph of a couple having a drink, captioned by an illegible handwritten sentence or two in faded ink.

The Mystery of the Useless Notes might seem like a small thing, but it’s emblematic of The Order’s biggest problem: It’s boring. Ready at Dawn built a beautiful, cutting-edge game world but forgot to fill it with beautiful, cutting-edge things to do.

Despite their visual flair, the guns are garden-variety boomsticks, and in the rare event that you get your hands on something interesting, such as the Thermite Gun (which shoots ignitable clouds of explosive dust), it’s gone in a few minutes. Chapter by chapter, you find cover and shoot bad guys until the game decides you’ve had enough and lets you move onward.

Did I mention that there are lots of quick-time events? Those were hot in 2006, too, right? It’s all just uninspired, to say the least, and criminally lacking in creativity, to say a bit more.

It’s also short. Much has been made of this, and truth be told, I finished The Order: 1886 in about 6 hours. There are no multiplayer or extra modes to speak of, so when you hit the end credits, you’re done.

I’m usually not troubled at all by a game’s length — I’d much rather play a great 8-hour game than a mediocre 15-hour one — but it’s an issue here because The Order ends with an abrupt, unsatisfying thud. A short game is one thing, but a short game that screeches to a halt with a cliffhanger in an obvious grasp for a sequel? It’s frustrating, though perhaps it speaks more to problems with the game’s development than to malicious intent.

And to be fair, there’s nothing malicious about The Order: 1886. Its combat is decent but dated, its world enticing but empty. Ready at Dawn clearly has the chops to build a beauty of a video game — and in a sense, it absolutely has — but the secret to video game immortality isn’t found in great looks. It’s found in great gameplay, and unfortunately, that’s where this holy knight turns into just another thug with a gun.

What’s hot: Incredible graphics, interesting world, excellent acting and sound, the combat is fine…

What’s not: …as it was in 2006, uninspired gameplay, leans heavily on quick-time events, boring, ends with a whimper.

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