The Order 1886, PS4 Review

The Order 1886

I recently purchased Sony entertainments ‘supposed’ benchmark PS4 exclusive, The Order 1886. The Order 1886 was one of my most anticipated games of 2015, but how glad I am that I decided not to pre-order the game or buy it digitally at £54.99! I say this because the game, although good, took me 6 hours to finish and in one play through. I bought the game pre-owned from my local store for £34.99 which is a £20 price drop of a game that is barely a month old.

The game itself was ok, the best graphics seen to date on a console game and the voice acting was on par with The last of us. Remastered (undoubtedly one of the best PlayStation exclusives ever) and the story was enjoyable if not a little vague. The real issue with The Order 1886 is that it was inexcusably short, for a game that was in development for over 5 years, there just wasn't enough to do, with absolutely no replay ability or multiplayer.

There are around 15 chapters in the game but some last only a few minutes and are all cut scenes, only emphasising the developers attempts to fluff out the length of the game by an illusion of more chapters. These illusionary tactics of subterfuge and not so clandestine padding, only left me feeling cheated out of a chapter that I should have had some part in, rather than watching a cut scene. This feeling could have been avoided if the Sony ‘devs’ had cut the game down to 10-12 chapters with the cut scenes an extension or a prologue to a playable chapter.

What the current gen games industry is repeatedly showing us is they are on a cash grab mission, doing less and demanding more. The games culture has been growing for 30 years and it saddens me to see what gaming has become. When consumers buy products in a market where there is plenty of choice, value for money springs to mind.

There are games like The witcher 3, Dragon Age Inquisition and even FIFA 15 offer 100’s of hours of gameplay with multiplayer. So why is it that The ‘devs’ of The Order 1886 thought a game that limits almost everything you do to a linear story, no multiplayer, zero replay ability and a campaign that can be completed in 6-7 hours, charge £54.99 and expect people not to be irritated. There is absolutely no value for money when comparing it to other games.

I have a video from YouTube showing all the cut scenes from the game its 2.30 hours long (feel free to fast forward) . Even less actual game play offering for an extremely pricey movie!