A historical werewolf in London – and it proves to be a howler
Come join me in the cupboard of hack games journo devices while I pull out the ‘stunningyet-vacuous bimbo’ cliche. Last seen some time in the ’90s, when it was still de rigueur to allude to Lara’s back problems, it was used to illustrate the dilemma of being seduced by something on a purely skin-deep level while being aware of its more profound flaws. Would you date them anyway, you bloody bloke you? Phwoar. Etc.
However, there have been far fewer examples of that disparity between graphics and gameplay in recent years. The prettiest games have also tended to deliver the goods mechanically, with such consistency we now have a Pavlovian reflex towards visual fidelity as an indicator of overall excellence. In the case of The Order: 1886, it’s a misleading reflex indeed.
I bring up the stunning-yet-vacuous-bimbo line because anecdotally I’ve been telling people about all the game’s pacing issues, its choking linearity and bizarre design calls, and still they all want to play it. Its looks are simply too good to ignore. Everyone wants to date the airhead.
I can’t blame them. The Order is beautiful on every level – not just its extraordinary lighting, material rendering and post-processing, but in the alt-history world it depicts. Skies full of zeppelins, London terraces replete with immaculate set dressing of the era and garnished with sci-fi imaginings from outside it. Here the industrial age is accelerated by electricity, and humans are split by genetic mutations which render some as bestial ‘half-breeds’. The twin prongs of Ready At Dawn’s thoughtful and tangible parallel dimension and the scarcely believable fidelity of its RAD 4.0 engine have long been at the centre of its appeal, and they don’t disappoint here in the final product.
Everything else does.
The intention here is apparently to blend action/adventure gameplay with something more overtly cinematic, similar to Quantic Dream’s QTE-driven interactive dramas. As such, the lines between cutscenes and gameplay are consistently blurred – the former all occur in-engine so there’s no visual disconnect between the two. It also means your level of interaction in a given scene is often reduced to walking from point to point, perhaps pressing X to examine an object along the way before triggering either a gunfight or a cutscene. There are chapters in which you’re given a little more power and will thus pick locks, execute melee takedowns or manipulate the scenery (via QTEs) to progress, but they account for a notable minority of the overall experience.
Paranormal interactivity
And that’s hugely frustrating. Not because The Order is linear, and not because it depends on QTEs for much of its interaction. It’s frustrating because it you never once feel empowered. Your protagonist Grayson (aka Sir Galahad) is empowered by the narrative, true, but you’re kept at arm’s length from him by the game’s design, which rewards nothing other than your ability to do what you’re told, and quickly.
Match the split-second button prompt in time or shoot some blokes from behind cover and Grayson will do the rest. In one extraordinary scene in which your sole objective is to find a clue in a room, you search four drawers in order to trigger another character finding it. So much for player agency. The overall effect is not that you are your character (and thus able to enjoy his victories or share his troubles), but that you’re an actor playing him.
An actor with a script to which to adhere, gaffer tape marks on the ground to stand on and his own stunts to do. It’s an inevitable side effect of The Order’s admirable, but ultimately misguided, will to deliver the most cinematic presentation possible.
Okay, fine. So it’s a movie. So’s everything Telltale has released for the last two years, to widespread acclaim. But where the latter offers dialogue choice, decisions with consequences and characters you care about, The Order doesn’t. It isn’t fully committed to either interactive drama or action/adventure, so ends up unable to meet your expectations of either.
Cinematically, cutscene shots are framed at distances and angles Hollywood wouldn’t dream of, and they’re paced at a tempo that would have Béla Tarr itching to snip the reel.
Example: walking through a Whitechapel alley with Lafayette, you’re drawn into a cutscene which exists to show a man ahead of you, and an apple cart to your side – you can pick up an apple and chuck it at him while Lafayette hides in ambush. The camera moves to the man, then to Grayson’s face, then to Lafayette’s. Then to the apple cart. Then back to Grayson’s, where it lingers inordinately long, so proud of the facial animation tech that it’s forgotten why the cutscene began in the first place.
Big Bang theory
It’s more successful as a covershooter, certainly. Weapon feedback is uniformly meaty, conveying the well-oiled mechanisms in the smallest of its pistols and most powerful of experimental rifles via excellent sound, pad vibration and the physical response from the foes you hit. But there are huge compromises evident here, too.
There are three enemy types beyond the basic cannon fodder – shotgun specialists, Lycans and Elder Lycans – and while each offers a stiff challenge, not one does so with much room for tactical finesse beyond lobbing a grenade. The QTEbased encounters with Elders work reasonably well, but it’s clear that RAD simply couldn’t muster a satisfying way for you to engage with Lycans in real-time, which is why they’re limited to just two or three messy and unsatisfying scenes.
Perhaps if the narrative was absolutely stellar, The Order could still be considered a successful experiment. A supernatural conspiracy set in unfamiliar territory, it’s pretty good by action game standards. But ‘pretty good’ doesn’t atone for the compromises it makes to facilitate its filmic elements. It had to have been incredible.
Do you still want to date the airhead? The Order’s certainly worth your eyes, if not your money. Just don’t expect anything deeper than an ninehour wonder-tech showcase. Phil Iwaniuk
Verdict
Visually it’s everything you could have hoped for, but the compromises required to reach that fidelity, and moments of narcissism as a result of it, are hugely damaging.