What The Order 1886 Got Right

I played The Order: 1886 and I like it. It’s not a crime, well, maybe on the internet, but not in the real world. I recently wrote a blog about story in games and as soon as I wrap it up, I find myself playing The Order. All criticisms aside, this game does a lot of things right when it comes to storytelling technique in games. You may not like the story itself or the ending but I do think that this game does do a few things right when it comes to story telling.

There were no loading screens. This was important in getting that “playing a movie” vibe that many go for. It’s not a groundbreaking feature as it has been featured in games before (Naughty Dog games). It helps with flow and continuity of the story being told, and I hope it’s something that becomes standard in games that aspire to storytelling.

The graphics were awesome. While many will protest that graphics aren’t that important, I disagree. Games are a visual medium, and the closer we can get to photo-realism the better in games like these. The improved graphics certainly do help, as well as their attention to detail. I mean, they had consistent nosehairs for crying out loud. How could you not be impressed by that? Don’t get me started on that awesome mustache - eat your heart out Mario. So yeah, it was beautiful, the motion capture, the voice acting and animations were all spot-on. It all combined to make for a very beautiful technical showcase and I enjoyed every bit of the eye candy.

It was linear. I know that it sounds like blasphemy, but I honestly don’t see the problem with a linear game. The same people that take games to task for being linear would, in the same breath, declare 2D Mario games to be god’s gift to mankind. But this isn’t a blog about how comically inconsistent game critics can be. A linear game gives more control over pacing when telling a story. I’ve played many an open world game without knowing what the hell was going on in the main campaign. I honestly don’t see a point to all the effort sometimes. Don’t send me off for 2 hours to kill a bunch of sharks to make an ammo pouch to carry 2 more bullets and still expect me to be able to follow what the hell is going on. I played Fallout New Vegas and all I could remember was that if someone shot at me, I shot back at them. Still loved it though.

It was short. There was very little filler in this game and I loved that. I didn’t have to go searching for bullets and food in trashcans. I didn’t have to search endlessly for intel or gun upgrades. I just pushed forward fluidly. You did get gun upgrades of sorts as you progressed, and that thermite gun is something that I loved playing with. I’ve re-played chapters just to get a second go-round with it. Ready at Dawn abandoned the usual skinner box mentality associated with game design to facilitate their need to control pacing and progression of the story. The game was short, but if I kill 70 people and I want to kill some more, I can just re-play the chapters. To be honest, I’ve played so many shooters, that it all gets very redundant very quickly. They gave you some unique weapons and enough people to use it on before it all became a bore. The game never felt like work. You can’t have a game go on and on, wave after wave and still expect someone to follow your story after 15 hours. I’ll admit that the first Bioshock did achieve this, but not every story worth telling can be done in this fashion. I personally didn’t care for the story in the sequels so even they could not replicate their own success easily.

I personally think that this game came very close to balancing gameplay and story. It does come up a bit short in the gameplay department though. It did not necessarily need to be longer, but a little more variety in enemy types, attacks and AI would be welcome improvements. I think that the story, world and lore were all well done and I for one hope they don’t over-correct in the sequels ahead.