Picture this: a steampunk setting back in the late 19th century. London, England. A band of noble knights protecting the land from vigilantes, conspirators......and the best part? Werewolves and vampires. Combine that with an array of weapons (19th century variations of a lot of the weapons that we have today) and really neat gadgets such overloading an electric board with a circuit breaker, one would expect The Order: 1886 to be a pretty good addition to the exclusive lineup of the, at the time, year old PlayStation 4. But that's not what we got in the long run. All we got was nothing more but a lot of disappointment.
The Order are a group of noble knights sworn to maintain the balance of England (or something similar to it) and you take control of one called Sir Galahad, or Grayson to his close allies. Speaking of which, let's get this out of the way first before we tackle this game, the characters of The Order: 1886 are all one-dimensional and befitting of various generic tropes over the years. Well, completely untrue as they had one character that is actually likeable. Everyone else, not so much. Right off the bat, very generic characters.
Now onto the meat and potatoes. If you are familiar with Gears of War or even any game with third-person shooter mechanisms like Uncharted, Vanquish or even Max Payne, this is the gameplay of The Order: 1886 in a nutshell. Underneath the steampunk environment that it portrays, the game is still a bland, generic third-person shooter unfortunately with its own kind of flaws (the hitbox is pretty bad when it comes to using pistols being one of them), but it does have a gimmick behind it (a forgettable gimmick though). With the simple press of the L1 button, Sir Galahad will go into 'Blacklist' mode. Think of it as 'Bullet Time' from the Max Payne franchise only limited to the pistol. Time slows down as you can easily kill any enemy (including the armored mooks if you're quick enough) with well-timed shots to the body. And if you're even quicker, flicking the right analog stick will divert your aim to another poor sap for you to mow down. It's not a bad gimmick if Max Payne, or even the underrated Vanquish, hadn't had done it first and even better than this. Another problem that you will encounter is the faulty cover mechanics. Hiding behind cover is more of a nuisance than it helps you; the player. Going into cover causes the camera to zoom in on Sir Galahad, blinding you from seeing the movement of the enemies. And moving around in cover doesn't help either cause for some reason moving too close to the edge of cover causes Sir Galahad to stand up and get shot. Oh and don't rely too heavily on staying behind cover for too long cause it will eventually break. Get used to getting shot at a lot too. Sustaining too much damage will put you in a critical state, forcing you to heal yourself with 'Blackwater' that can only be used once per shooting sequence. It's your 'get out of jail free' card.....that is, if you can use it in time. Usually when this happens, the A.I. will swarm you and finish you off before you even have a chance to save yourself. Perhaps it would've been better not to have this if it didn't play into the generic plotline that The Order: 1886 has.
The enemies don't vary that much, but they do pack quite a lot of steampunk heat to take you down. Prison escapees, rebels, guards, elite rebels and guards covered in armor, grenade specialists and supernatural beings like werewolves and vampires. Good thing you are also armed to the tee to take down these foes as well. Much like Uncharted's gun management, you have a primary long gun, a secondary pistol and two slots for grenades (regular and smoke). Bare in mind that these guns are based off of weapons from the 1880s (pistols, revolvers, sub-machine guns, hunting rifles, sniper rifles, shotguns, grenade and rocket launchers) combined with fictional weapons that pack quite the punch. That is the one satisfying thing about the game minus the inaccuracy of some of the pistols; shooting people and creatures with these weapons. It's even more satisfying to take a shotgun and just go to town on people with it. Unless you want to die quickly that is.
The Order: 1886 is a beautiful game, but not even pretty graphics can save this game from being the bland, boring, short, generic, poor man's Gears Of War clone that it is. That's another drawback: the length. At least five and a half hours is all you need to finish the game and of course you can't skip cutscenes. The Order: 1886 is basically an interactive movie with too much quicktime events and an ending that comes abruptly with little satisfaction behind it. And the worst part about it? The Order: 1886 had so much potential. It did, but the flaws completely outdraw the positives in the long run. Don't even bother wasting your time with this game.