What Sony Corporation Must Learn From The Order 1886’s Failure

Sony put a lot of faith into PS4’s exclusive title, The Order 1886, it was touted to be the next big thing in gaming, however, the failed on almost every possible area and was largely responsible for labeling the PS4 as the console with lackluster exclusives.

Developed by Ready At Dawn, The Order 1886 was a single player third person shooter set in the past in the city of London. The game featured some really cool weapon designs and has some of the best visuals we’ve come to see in any game.

However, that was pretty much all that The Order 1886 had going for itself. Apart from these two positive notes, the game failed on every front possible. Weeks before the launch of the game, it was leaked that the game’s single player campaign is roughly 4-6 hours. For a $60 game, this was deemed unacceptable, especially given the fact that there was no multiplayer aspect in the game to increase the value of the game.

The Order 1886 also received criticism for its boring and vague storyline, along with its linearity. The game doesn’t allow players to interact with objects and there is no amount of freedom whatsoever. According to modern day standards, this is totally unacceptable.

Another criticism regarding the game was the horrible AI, which was too easy according to reviewers. The AI did not react in accordance to player movement and was dull for most of the part. This led to some easy missions in a game that was already very short.

[Jalva]

That games and movies don't mix, it's that simple.

[Gazondaily]

Well not necessarily. TLOU plays a lot like a movie and look how well that turned out.

I think this is a lesson more for Ready at Dawn than Sony.

Visuals can help carry a game in terms of hype and sales but we gamers (well most of us) are a discerning bunch. We have seen far too many instances of visually astounding but gameplay hollow games and The Order is one of the biggest examples of that this gen.

Sony aren't to blame here. Ready at Dawn are. They need to drastically re-evaluate what constitutes a good GAME. Relegating gamers to the sidelines or tightly controlling player freedom and fooling us with nice visuals will only take you so far. Ultimately, the Order did more harm than good to RAD. Unless of course they use this as an opportunity to motivate themselves and really get their act together.

[Cindy-rella]

Lol, i cant believe people are still spreading lies about the game being 4-6 hours long. The game takes longer to finish more than 6hours and im quite sure if someone wants they could probably run through the game very quickly to beat it under 7 hours.

The order 1886 is a very good game and i haven't seen another game this gen with such high quality overall as the order 1886. The game launched without issues and didnt need patching to fix anything day one or so to rectify glitches. I saw an article about the dev team for fallout saying that their game isnt about having high quality graphics which already to me means they dont value pretty graphics. Their games are always riddled with bugs and bland graphics but their games are highly praised.

The order 1886 is an amazing game thats issue free but people seem to not value that in this day and age. The order 1886 is the game the devs intended on making so its either someone likes it or not. Not everything is for everyone. To each his own

[thorstein]

I definitely agree with the two replies above. It is further backed by the user review score on N4G. One that is subject to more scrutiny than any other system.

It was an incredible, technically sound game. As stated, there were no bugs, no glitches, no problems with the game.

As for the "value" argument that was suddenly invented in order to denigrate this game, I guess those reviewers are going to have to give No Man's Sky the highest score ever due to "value" alone. The game literally costs you .00000002 of a cent per year for overall value of the game since it will take you billions of years for full completion.

As mentioned before, this game was just a victim of a ton of hate (including this article.) RAD nor SONY have not made any statement about this game being a failure.

Did it sell multi-billion dollar title like COD? No.

Is it better than COD? Yes, even though they are rated by the *ahem* press as better.

[gangsta_red]

@ thorstein

"As stated, there were no bugs, no glitches, no problems with the game."

I'll never understand this arguement. Doesn't matter if the game didn't have any bugs, no glitches or problems (which by the way it did have bugs), it comes down to was the game fun, interesting, GOOD. And clearly the mass majority did not think so.

If I had replicated the sculpture of the Venus de Milo, perfect in every way...but I used pig s*** and dog crap instead of marble would you still celebrate my accomplishment?

"As for the "value" argument that was suddenly invented in order to denigrate this game,"

Really...could have sworn it was made for the Metal Gear Ground Zeroes all those years ago...how about Ryse? Amazing how much we pretend to forget when defending a game on our console of choice.

"this game was just a victim of a ton of hate"

*Sigh*, I also think this game is a victim of unprecedented compromise, forgiveness, not to mention a strange willingness from certain gamers to look the other way even though glaring flaws in vanilla gameplay, recycled boss battles, horrible AI, no extra modes and anything else that any other game would be crucified for and rightly so.

The CoD games have more gameplay, gameplay features and online options than anything in The Order and that game is super suplex'ed routinely on this site, yet all passes are given to The Order.

[generic-user-name]

"They need to drastically re-evaluate what constitutes a good GAME. Relegating gamers to the sidelines or tightly controlling player freedom and fooling us with nice visuals will only take you so far. "

I disagree with this line of thought, why are we trying to limit the medium of video games by saying that every game must have 'x' amount of 'this' or 'that'. Some games throw you into a world and let you do anything, some games put you on a leash to show you what they want you to see some games are a mixture, The Order is on the extreme end of the 'leash' option but this isn't a fault, this is what they set out to achieve, this is what they advertised.

I like horror films and I like blockbuster Marvel films, why can't I like both games that give me freedom and games that don't?

And another complaint I found redundant, The Order has 16 chapters, people were outraged that...3?...of these are just cutscenes. Now what if instead The Order had 13 chapters, instead of giving those cutscenes 'titles' would the complaints still be there? People are essentially complaining that some of the cutscenes were given titles and this has no impact on the game's length (which I found to be a standard length for a SP campaign these days).

[AstroCyborg]

sony published the game so its as much as their fault

[thorstein]

@Gangsta Red

I love the game, you don't. Big deal. You have your reasons and I have mine.

If you don't think there are hateboys whose sole purpose is to write clickbait about a title that has been hyped, then you must be new to the internet. Welcome. Hateboys (like this article here) are only here to garner clicks.

Sometimes it comes off so obvious since they all use similar words. I honestly can't believe "underwhelming" is still hanging around. But I really don't care what the hateboys think, it was obvious when Ryse was released, it is obvious when Far Cry 4 released and it is obvious for this game.

Do you really think there was journalistic integrity surrounding this game? The plethora of hate that was written about it was laughable. It was what the editors wanted.

And we continue to clamor for journalistic integrity.

*sigh* really? SMH and all that.

BTW, you really don't know why people applaud a dev that releases a bug free game?

[gatormatt80]

I thought The Order was OK. I enjoyed it enough to platinum the game, even though it is a fairly easy platinum trophy. I suppose what I really liked best was the world and environment that RAD had created. I though this game had massive potential for an Uncharted 2-esq sequel. RAD laid down a great foundation that just needed a few tweaks here and there.

[gangsta_red]

@thorstein

So basically what you are trying to say is that more than 90% of all gaming journalist, media and gamers came together specifically to hate this game? Just to generate clicks? Why not then crap on every game that comes out? Why specifically choose The Order for this and not Bloodborne?

You don't maybe think that perhaps when there's a huge amount of reviews and opinions in agreement of a game not being so great that maybe there might be a shred of truth to it?

"you really don't know why people applaud a dev that releases a bug free game?"

Doesn't matter if the game is bug free, (which it wasn't, I don't know why you keep saying that) the game also has to be good, fun and interesting!

[Spotie]

@thorstein: "If you don't think there are hateboys whose only sole purpose is to write clickbait about a title that has been hyped, then you must be new to the internet."

Well, see, the thing is: he's one of em. Check his track record as it pertains to comments about this game: he is one of the very people who have taken EVERY opportunity to bash this game, to invent problems where there were none, to exaggerate anything that could possibly be perceived as an issue.

Septic too. "Gameplay hollow?" What the hell does that even mean? Were there flaws in the gameplay that I missed? Cuz my experience was of a solid tps. It never tried to be revolutionary, it didn't fail in any implementations. You can't really argue there's a flaw there, and yet...

Notice how there's the cry of there being not enough gameplay, but they can't explain what that means. They can't explain why the game can't just be a story-driven game without a bunch of gimmicks. They can't explain why it shouldn't just be a solid TPS. The only thing they CAN do is complain about how the game isn't a bunch of stuff nobody ever THOUGHT it would be, and never address how well it executes what it IS.

HOW was the AI bad? Unless you were playing on easy, they pinned your ass down and didn't just pop out of cover for you to shoot them with ease.

Why the hell would anybody compare it to Call of Duty, a game that NEEDS all that extra stuff to keep the online fresh?

Some people will go to any lengths to bash a game, including make arguments that don't make sense.

[rainslacker]

@gangsta

"You don't maybe think that perhaps when there's a huge amount of reviews and opinions in agreement of a game not being so great that maybe there might be a shred of truth to it?"

Aren't you guilty of this as well. In this article

http://n4g.com/news/1759251...

You call TLOU overrated in comment 1.3.6.(will have to expand since the person we're all replying to was marked for trolling)

Couldn't your same logic be applied in reverse? Or is this one of those things where your argument hinges on whether or not the argument your trying to make happens to be based on what is perceived as popular opinion?

Anyhow, what about other games...such as Evolve, which are praised highly, but are generally thought to be crap by us forum goers....even those who never played it a lot of the time. What about games like Heavenly Sword, which got decent scores, but was criticized heavily for certain things...like length(it really was a 6 hour game), but is loved by almost everyone that played it?

Feel free to switch out any game you feel is relevant to you personally to avoid the console war vibe.

Doesn't it make more sense that there is often a disconnect between the reviewer and the player, where the reviewers, and now even the previewers, are making issues out of things in these games, which for the most part aren't actually shared thoughts by the people who did play the game.

You seem to be making the number of people that hate the game into a much bigger number than it actually is. What I've seen is outside the known obvious haters, is that most people enjoyed it, but did think there were issues with it such as lack of variety and an occasional slower pace. The difference between the known haters and the people who pretty much liked it...or even those that can show they played it and didn't like it...are that those that played it and liked/disliked it can give concrete reasons on why they felt the way they did, and don't just parrot the same trite that these stupid articles bring up.

My personal take on the game? I enjoyed it for my time with it. Had a decent story, an amazing setting, great attention to detail, and mostly interesting characters. It had solid game play mechanics, but that game play was set within rather repetitive game play scenarios, a cover mechanic which I found clunky at times(but not always), and places where the game seemed like it just came up short of doing something that would have been interesting. I found it far from a terrible game. It was released unbroken, and while there were a few minor bugs, there was nothing like what most games release with nowadays. At the least I would give this game a 7, and more than likely a 7.5, because it was a solid game, that was fun to play, and it did things adequately enough to make it a slightly above average game. anything rated lower than that is just a hate score...you know it, and the journalist who gave low scores know it. I dunno about you, but I can see a marked difference between what I say I liked and disliked about this game than those on here who seem to want to hate the game. Devil is in the details and all that.

[Gazondaily]

@Spotie

"Septic too. "Gameplay hollow?" What the hell does that even mean? Were there flaws in the gameplay that I missed?"

I keep spelling them out, each flaw at a time and you still don't get it.

Look, here's my review of the game. Read it instead:

http://www.gameondaily.com/...

So many flaws and you're struggling to find one? Stop defending this trash

"HOW was the AI bad? Unless you were playing on easy, they pinned your ass down"

What? Lol the ai was atrocious. It had one real variant and that was a shotgunner who had one ai script... Run at you and sponge bullets.

They had those lycan who would run at you, you press circle to roll dodge and rinse and repeat. The stealth section in the garden...they had no ai. Just following a pattern like this was a game that was two generations old.

Mate, you clearly struggle to understand what constitutes a good game or actual good gameplay. Please leave it to the rest of us to do the job for you.

@thorstein

Lmao at this complete utter BS statement about media conspiracy against it. Just wow...I remember reading how everyone crawled out of the woodwork after day one of the shoddy reviews and then said how the industry conspired against Sony lol. Then when Bloodborne reviews came out, hallelujah! Best game eva!

Seriously, if people enjoyed this game then fair enough but opinions aside, its widely regarded as a mediocre game and one I consider to be one of the worst games this gen.

[maniacmayhem]

I love how no one can have a bad opinion about The Order without being called out, questioned if they played it or asked if they even own a PS4 or anything having to do with this game.

@Rainslacker

"You seem to be making the number of people that hate the game into a much bigger number than it actually is."

I think it is quite the opposite, you and Hicken are trying desperately to make the number of people who enjoyed this game more than it really is. The game was mediocre on all fronts, there was nothing redeeming about this game besides the graphics.

You liked it, good. But why does everyone's opinion come into question when they didn't like THIS game? Of all games this is the one that people need to be questioned on why they didn't like it and repeatedly at that.

Oh and here is the review scores from sites on Metacritic:

http://www.metacritic.com/g...

Doesn't sound as far fetch that perhaps the number is as large as Red makes it. Maybe it's time to face facts that outside of your friends a lot of people did NOT enjoy this game.

"are that those that played it and liked/disliked it can give concrete reasons on why they felt the way they did, and don't just parrot the same trite that these stupid articles bring up."

And what's the difference for people who just parrot the same reasons as to why they did like it, like you?

Are these people suppose to make up inventive ways on what they didn't like just to make you believe they played the game?

Who are you to tell people what they should say and shouldn't say in order to convince YOU that they played the game?

I love this sense of "prove it to me" you have on this site.

@Spotie
"Some people will go to any lengths to bash a game, including make arguments that don't make sense."

How about you explain to everybody why you think the GAME IS GOOD. Instead of constantly attacking people for not explaining why they think the game is bad, how about you explain what you thought was GREAT about the game.

And I want you to go into just as much detail as you want others to go in when they think the game is bad.

Why do you think the AI is good, Why do you think the story is great, what makes the gameplay so fantastic?

I notice that you and others like to cry, complain and demand the "haters' explain themselves but then when it's your turn to tell why you like the game it's:

"I thought the gameplay was good, it had no bugs, it was glitch free".

Plain as white paper just like the supposed haters you all try and rag on.

"Why the hell would anybody compare it to Call of Duty, a game that NEEDS all that extra stuff to keep the online fresh?"

Is this directed at thorstein? Who actually made the CoD comparison first? LMAO! I bet you it wasn't, but he's the one who directly brought in the CoD franchise. Hilarious.

[rainslacker]

@maniac

Thanks for the metacritic link. I think it actually proves my point.

Under user reviews

Positive 1420
Mixed 409
Negative 648

To me, those 1420+409 is about 66% of people who liked the game or found it to be OK. Gansta stated that 90% of people hated the game, yet the statistics actually show that only 33% of people hated it. That's a 56% disparity.

How do we account for that other than to assume that gansta is trying to take anecdotal data that he only pick out at his own discretion...which is basically what my argument is.

Critic reviews

Positive 30
Mixed 53
Negative 11

Again, mixed and positive comes to while those that hated it amounts to just over 10%.

That's an 80% disparity. Far worse than the user reviews wouldn't you say?

How am I less credible in my assertions, and gansta gets some defense from you, when your own provided links actually say what I'm saying?

Even if we split up the mixed into say half for positive, half for negative, the numbers are still far less than what gansta is suggesting to make his point.

As far as details about the game and all that...go further down in the thread and read gangsta's reason for not linking the game(comment 13). Every single one of those reasons is parroted from some article, yet they don't actually provide any details or examples despite being a rather lengthy post. Then go read my or any other person's post who says they like the game, and see what they criticize as well, and the details they give to back up their comments.

I don't know who played the game or who didn't. But when some people say things that just aren't true...like the bad AI, then I know they haven't played it...because the AI in this game is actually rather aggressive, and will seek you out. They come in waves, but that is a game play mechanic, not a implementation of the AI. You can usually always tell when a person plays a game, because they will actually provide some level of detail, or at the very least say what the game does right, and where those right things still came up short due to other factors. gansta doesn't do that. he criticizes everything as fact, and provides no details that can't be found in any number of the negative articles that exist on the internet, which is routine for him for any Sony exclusive game.

[JohnWayne_]

I knew sceptic would be in the top of the comments on this article, trolling a neg Sony article as always.

[gangsta_red]

@Maniac
+Bubbs Maniac, my thoughts exactly.

@Rainslacker

"like the bad AI, then I know they haven't played it...because the AI in this game is actually rather aggressive, and will seek you out."

LMAO!! Wow, maybe we should question if you truly played the game.

Only the shotgunners seek you out and by seeking they just run straight towards you. Every other enemy hides behind cover and falls on top of each other as you pick them off. The lycans run in the same attack pattern constantly...and that is pretty much the whole game. Oh yea...the two boss fights that play out the exact same way.

"I don't know who played the game or who didn't."

You should have just stopped right there, because everything after that is just moot.

"because they will actually provide some level of detail"

I have proven enough detail in a number of my past comments. I was even marked as Spam (and lost a bubble) once because I provided so much detail that a mod told me there were spoilers. But Maniac is right, why do I have to prove to you if I played the game or not? You are no one important that I have to bend a knee and provided level specific details in order to gain your approval or acceptance of having truly played the game.

What's even funnier is I have also been critical of Evolve in my past comments, even recently. For a person who claims he always looks(stalks) through my comments you seem to only scope out the negative ones involving Sony.

Also, I love the fact that I have praised Axiom Verge and Bloodborne and I get absolutely no resistance, no rage or rantings, no questions of if I played those games, no suspicions. But I say something bad about The Order and I get accused of never playing the game, never going into detail, not owning a PS4.

Maybe you should start to prove to me that you own a PS4 and like this game. Starting with step by step detailed breakdown of each level.
Feel free to PM me with that report.

[IGiveHugs2NakedWomen]

That article wasn't written very well...

[thorstein]

@maniac

I have always respected your opinion, and though I can't speak for others, I have read many comments about the Order and I have never heard anyone honestly complain about middling reviews (5-7 out of 10) on it. On the contrary, I have actually stated that I have no problem with those.

Most people don't.

I (and I believe, many other people who have played the game) take exception to the incredibly low reviews that gave the game a 2/10 or a 4/10.

I honestly don't believe that reviews like those are able to be defended. The reviews that did this were mostly repeated lies from other sources such as campaign length and (this guy wasn't joking, I swear) "generic story."

If you haven't played the game, here is the premise: In Victorian Steampunk London, the Knights of the Round (from the days of Arthur, King of the Britons) are locked in a deadly war with the Lycans (werewolves.)

These reviews went on to claim that the game was like Gears of War!?!! So, I had to ask a friend about GearsOW being set in Victorian England and that it was a steampunk game. He was quite flabbergasted.

That is the hate about which we speak. Not the honest criticisms, but the absolute bull that was being written in order to garner clicks.

You already responded about this game in my review of it, so some of this is a bit repetitious and more for the general audience here.

[rainslacker]

I'll be happy to stop at that comment if you didn't bother to skip over the statistics that show that your assertions are nowhere close to reality.

Why did you not bother to address my analysis of the metacritic reviews when they happen to be your thoughts exactly...because I'm pretty sure I addressed your thoughts and showed you are wrong. You also avoid the topic of everything I called you out for, only to try and revert back to your original arguments, which are again no more detailed than what you can read in in the hate articles.

As far as what you have to prove...I'd say prove you played it and have a PS4. Your latent hostility towards anything Sony has made it so no one can take your arguments as anything but trolling. No one here is responsible for your image but yourself.

If you really want to try and burn me in an argument, then at least bring some real arguments, and not the lame, "oh look at me, I turned it around by calling him out" routine. It's pretty pathetic.

Anyhow, out of bubbles. Respond with the last word if you care to. If you do, please do address my actual point that you are wrong about how 90% of the people and media hated this game....because that was the main point of my post. maniac provided the data I needed to prove you wrong, and you were willing to give him a well said for proving you wrong, so would like reasons why your still defending your stance.

[Gazondaily]

Gosh, if people are going to defend this weak game then I really do wonder how they can even begin to critique 90% of other ones. Anyway, agree to disagree (very strongly )

[Spotie]

So you just gave up, eh, Septic?

What's weak is your argument against this game. What's weak is your propensity to exaggerate and fabricate problems with the game while ignoring any and everything it does right.

Same goes for you, maniac. Act like no one- myself, included- has explained what's done right in the game. What did I enjoy? The world. The setting was awesome. I loved the new take on the Knights of the Round. I enjoyed Tesla's weapons immensely. Not typically one for steampunk, but this game made me enjoy it.

Best game ever? No. Flawless? Not close. But it's not the abomination you people keep trying to convince others that it is.

[Gazondaily]

I didn't give up Spotie. I linked my entire review for you detailing everything wrong with the game. You lot are too busy defending this weak game to even come up with decent substantive points.

Read the bleedin review. Apparently if you critique the AI it means you haven't played the game?? I gave you an example above of how rubbish it is.

The absolutely rubbish boss battle that is just a QTE sequence, repeated TWICE, and the end boss?? Who on earth thought that was a good idea?

The lack of any real exploration?? You'd think theyd chuck in some decent collectibles or have a very deep side story. But nope. Just a bunch of things to rotate in your hands and many being pointless.

The set pieces where enemies magically keep respawning and coming at you. I mean this is the kind of shoddy practice we rinse Call of Duty for.

The absolutely useless qte sequences, you start the game with them and end with one. It's ridiculous, lazy and just pointless.

You cant even run when you want to in so many areas. Tight narrative control is one thing but this takes it to a whole new level.

The game is rubbish. If people enjoyed it then that's fine but when I'm extending the courtesy of detailing the flaws in the game and then referring you to a bleedin review Ive done quantifying everything ive said then you would think that even you, would realise the fact that ive done that.

Honestly, if you are defending this game, i really think you have very few standards. You accused us of not levying proper criticisms and you come up with sweeping defences like, I like the world, the srtting, tesla's tech etc. Wtf is that about? What about the gameplay? Both you and the devs seem to have forgotten about that.

Its a shoddy game, one where, I kid you not, I actually fell asleep with the controller in my hand as I was playing it.

I would tell the devs in the face, what on earth compelled them to make the downright terrible decisions they made.

So one more time, to break it down for you:

*Shoddy/ non existant AI- those lycan sequences that copy and paste the same thing multiple times, the absolutely old gen ai behaviours and no real ai behaviours

* QTE nonsense - some of the WORST qte implementation in gaming imo. Like the sequence on the air ship where the guy is having a conversation with one of the Knights and then the game casually tells you to press triangle in a long ass cutscene. Why?? The game is riddled with crap like this

* Uninspired boss battles - who on earth thought it was a good idea to repeat a carbon copy of the same qte battle twice and at the ending as well! Pathetic and just plain stupid and lazy! How??

* No exploration

* Silly narrative - like where the lead is on trial and says nothing. Tell them about the frickin vampires and conspiracy you moron! Then the generic plot just becomes plain silly, rebel outfit yadda

But hey. The graphics are nice.

So who is fabricating anything?? Learn to read mate. I've spelled out SPECIFIC examples for you, showed you MY review and you're chatting the same old BS that I am exaggerating or fabricating? Either you need to learn to read or youre purposely missing out everything I'm typing.

Absolutely pathetic and I use that word especially, that you critique my criticisms on the false basis that you have against me. Raise your standards and come at me when you have something worth responding to you because it just feels like I'm wasting my time with a blind fanboy who wouldn't know a quality game if it hit him on the face atm.

[Rimeskeem]

Uncharted has proven you wrong

[Jalva]

Uncharted isn't flooded with QTE's, it doesn't have unskippable cutscenes that last entire chapters nor does it have almost half the screen cut off to make it look more "cinematic", so no, Uncharted hasn't proven me wrong.

[ziggurcat]

@jalva:

the game isn't flooded with QTEs - there weren't that many *actual* QTEs in the game (mistaking a button prompt to open a door or inspect an object doesn't count as a QTE, sorry)

heaven forbid that you actually have to pay attention to the story instead of skipping everything...

half the screen is *not* cut off. the game isn't 16:9 with black bars slapped across the tom/bottom of the screen to make it look cinematic, it's actually 2.40:1 aspect ratio. here is the game on a proper 2.40:1/21:9 monitor:

http://gearnuke.com/order-1...

as you can see, *no* black bars, which means that they're not covering up *any* of the image displayed on screen just to make it look "cinematic."

[TFJWM]

Until Dawn says Hello.

They mix fine if done right just look at Quantic Dream's games.

[PrinceOfAllSaiyans]

Try telling that to Kojima and Naughty Dog the pioneers of the cinematic experience. And everyone else that tries to make their games cinematic experiences like Crystal Dynamics and Remedy. Hell Metal Gear has 30 minutes cutscenes.

OT- This game wasn't even made by Sony WWS.

[Good-Smurf]

MGS 4 have the whole cutscenes long enough to easily dwarf two feature length movies and looked how that game turned out.
I finished it twice and it's a pretty good game that runs smooth and literally bug free.

[AstroCyborg]

sony was the publisher

[rainslacker]

Forgot Quantic Dream as well. Heck their games are more guilty of what people criticize The Order for, and yet they still get fairly high ratings, and mostly seem to be liked by those who like story driven games. Heck they don't even get a lot of hate from anyone but the most adamant of haters. Not sure why The Order is being held up to more scrutiny than the Quantic Dream games. They're mostly the same thing, with the exception of a linear story line, and one being a TPS.

I think it's just time for those that don't like story driven games to stop playing them, so they can stop hating on them for those that do enjoy them. It's like they can't accept that there are actually people who like The Order, and won't be happy until everyone feels the same way they do about it.

[thorstein]

Tell that to the people who make Final Fantasy.

[ChickenOfTheCaveMan]

I disagree. I feel like the people who disliked the game would not have loved a movie based on it.

People try to blame QTE and lack of gameplay time, but probably the same people praised Heavy Rain. These were not the issue. Though I loved the game, I know many things were wrong with it.

My top issues were pacing and secondary characters were very underused. It felt like the world they introduced was massive but we saw .5% of it. How come we have the Order and weapon/tech master Tesla, rebels, lycans and vampires and get a rather simple 8 hours game. The Galahad story was great but it felt rushed as hell.

In the end, a good story telling pace and the gameplay time that would have come with it would have made this game amazing.

ND needs to lend some story resources to RAD(or whatever the studio will dev it) for the sequel.

[rainslacker]

I feel that due to the delay, Sony finally just said R@D had to get done what it could to have the basics of a story and stop implementing their other ideas. There were so many times in the game where I thought something was going to happen game play wise, but it just didn't, and I think that kept a lot of the story from progressing.

I don't care about the QTE...there really wasnt as much as some people try to make out, and I would like to have had more game play time, but again, I felt they left things undone.

Pacing I didn't have an issue with, and in fact the story seemed to go faster due to the same criticism you mention that there was all this stuff that was never explained.

I didn't feel it was a bad story...just incomplete. The game play was sufficient for what it was, but nothing exemplary. Overall, just a slightly above average game.

That being said, I still enjoyed it. It was a marvelous world that R@D was trying to create...but in this case I think they just got involved with more than they could handle in the time allotted. I would like to see how this game would have turned out if they had another year to work on it...but the money men probably had a thing or two to say about that.

I also am unsure if this article is correct that the game was a failure...at least commercially. I recall Sony saying it had decent sales upon release. I'd imagine the people that played it gave criticisms in much the same way the less hateful people do, and that R@D will probably learn from them.

I wouldn't mind seeing them continue the series, and hopefully make a fuller game out of it.

[dillhole]

Too many downvotes for this. I agree in some respects. If a game has a story then I should be able to at least control the story rather than run from one cutscene to the next. If I am in control of the characters then I should determine the outcome. If the outcome is always then same then why incorporate game elements at all?

[Christopher]

No, not that.

The lesson to learn here is that regardless of your plans to create a cinematic experience, make sure that gameplay is not left behind and that you are giving players enough content that they feel their $60 is well spent.

Also, not technically a failure. The Order is as much of a failure as Tomb Raider was based on sales alone, and it was just sales on a single platform and not 5.

[alabtrosMyster]

this is a bad examplem some of the best games that were released, since forever, were narative driven!

Even back in the 16-bit days we used to love games with cut scenes between levels... Back in the 32-bit area the JRPGs took an important role and had extensive text, amazing soud tracks to convey ambiance... more recently we had Half-Life 2, God of War (series) Gears of War, even Halo to some extent putting a lot of emphasis on their story/lore... obviously the kings of that style are ND with the Uncharted series and TLoU !

The Order is just a bad game, the controls are stoo stiff and there is zero interaction with most of the very beautiful (but ultimately dull) environment... Uncharted 4 on the other hand seems to be extremely interactive with a lot of physics based destruction, etc. great combat (meelee and guns) + traversal + light puzzles as usual... and a few cut scenes in between... perfect bland as usual...

I love games that tell a story and provide an interesting challenge, I get bored pretty fast when the story is loose and you are in just for the lore.

[KUV1977]

This 4 to 6 hours stuff again. It took me over 10 hours in the first run on normal difficulty. Sure, if some sites like to play their game on easy, run through it and then even subtract the time for cutscenes you will get 4-6 hours, but how many games could that be applied to? I heard the record for God of War II is under 90 Minutes. Surely that game wasn't worth it's money...

[ritchi45]

Just my personal opinion, but I don't find The Order to be a failure. I enjoyed it, and look forward to a sequel if it gets made.

[Letthewookiewin]

Same here and there is no released game to this day, that is as good or better looking than The Order. I stand by that.

[Jalva]

I'd like to see them make it look that good without the letterboxed screen.

[Letthewookiewin]

What does it matter?

[Thunder_G0d_Bane]

Who cares the gameplay is shit. A game needs to be about Gameplay not just graphics.

Witcher 3 says Hi! Gameplay and graphics!! Now that's what I call a Game!

[WowSoChill]

Just because you enjoyed it doesn't make it a success, it may be a success in your eyes, but believe it or not Gaming is a business, Sony made a investment in this Game without a great return and this is why it is deemed a failure

[johndoe11211]

So, obviously you're in the know. Exactly how bad of a failure was it? How much did it take to develop? how much did sony make back? How much profit or loss did they make on this game? You seem to have more information than me so please share.

[rainslacker]

Developer said it's on it's way to meet sales expectations. That isn't a failure. Doesn't make it wildly successful, but does mean that the game will sell what the publisher thought it would sell, and they base that number off what they want to sell in order to get a return on their investment.

Unlike you, I can provide an actual source.

http://www.gamespot.com/art...

Not sure of any official numbers released, but almost every analyst, and official sources are saying it sold quite well despite the criticisms.

In any case, no one poster on any single forum can say what a game has to sell to be considered a success or failure by the publisher, and since you don't have any numbers of what the game has sold, you can't make a determination either way.

[WowSoChill]

i don`t have the specifics and i never said i did in my previous comment, i was just pointing out how one person enjoying the Game doesn`t make it a financial success

[johndoe11211]

"i was just pointing out how one person enjoying the Game doesn't make it a financial success"

No, that is not all you did. You stated " Sony made a investment in this Game without a great return and this is why it is deemed a failure", so my question still stands, how do you know how much they invested and how do you know how much return they made in order to say the game was a failure?

[amnalehu]

Failure? The game sold well over 3 million copies! Furthermore, 1886 is a console THIRD PARTY exclusive game. I don't know why the game is being regarded as a "failure" given it's sales numbers and that many people actually liked it. It never pretended to be anything other than what it was; a story driven action based 3rd person shooter. People, for numerous reason expected more from the game than it ever promised. Lastly, unlike most games that have been released recently, 1886 was one of the few games that wasn't a broken mess at release. To label the game a failure is not only inaccurate, but on the verge of ridiculous.

[jobboy]

i totally agree with you. well said +bubble

[Malphite]

It's the first time I heard that the game sold over 3 million copies. Are those numbers official? I honestly would be happy about that if it was true cause I quite enjoyed the game and would like to see a sequel.

[fonger08]

That's because it hasn't. There haven't been any official sales numbers, and vgchartz... as reliable/unreliable as it may be still has it under 1 million.

[uth11]

While it's not the best game I've played, it's far from the worst.. And those visuals!

I think it does get more than its fair share of hate.

[KwietStorm_BLM]

It's called a failure because it wasn't received very well. I never heard of this 3 million figure, but it's not uncommon in the least for a game to sell many copies very early after release, because of anticipation and hype. Destiny is another game in recent memory that obviously sold incredibly well, but disappointed many people. If you want to talk about ridiculous, let's not act like we're oblivious to the mass amount of bad reviews (media and gamers) that took over the internet.

[Rookie_Monster]

@amnalehu,

"Failure? The game sold well over 3 million copies!"

where are you getting this imaginary number from? I have never heard a game officially dropped to a new retail price by the publisher so quickly and even more drastic price cut from stores when it is selling as great as you are saying. And where is the link if what you are saying is true?

Here is what I found:

http://ps4daily.com/2015/07...
PS4daily: "The Order 1886 didn’t do particularly well when it was released back in February. Soon after its release, many retailers started slashing the price of the game drastically, often offering it for half of its regular price.

Just last month, both Amazon and Best Buy were selling off their stock for just $20 per game — the cheapest it has ever been.

Now Sony has officially cut the price of The Order 1886. The official MRSP on the game is now $40, which still a lot more than most retailers are selling for — Amazon is currently selling it for $30."

There is no way The orders even sold 1/2 of what you are saying or even a million judging from these mass fire sales of a game that just came out about 5 months ago.

Edit thorstein below,

it doesn't make me angry I am just simply stating supply and demand and how sales goes. No need to be hasty with me posting some information that back up what I say.

BTW, it never reach the top of the chart on its release month, it was at #9 and drop completely off it the following month on NPD. Also, just information FYI

[thorstein]

Why does it make you so angry if it did? Was it 3 million? I don't know, I don't own their company and neither do you.

We know that it hit the top of the sales charts when it released.

It was also helped by a ton of articles extolling the "reviews mean nothing" taglines.

[rainslacker]

Here's what I found myself

http://www.gamespot.com/art...

That's an official source, but no number given

Here's an analysis of the top selling games in the UK for some period of time(didn't peruse it too hard).

http://www.mweb.co.za/games...

*Removing links after this part due to character limits

Patcher said it would hit 5 million...so we can either assume that it will hit about 2.5 or 100 million from that.:)

VGChartz has it at just under 1 million...which seems low given how much it sold on launch, it's initial pre-orders, and the fact the price was dropped pretty quickly, which in itself caused a surge in sales for the game. VGChartz also doesn't have digital sold representation...but I do recall they said the game sold around 560K globally it's first week...which isn't too shabby given the amount of hate it was receiving right before launch.

The game came in #9 on NPD for the month it released.

[DougLord]

What are you smoking. The game has yet to break 1mm units sold. It's #35 on the PS4 all time sales list.

[AstroCyborg]

then explain why sony treated rad so badly after launch

[johndoe11211]

Sony treated RAD badly after launch? Really??? Please elaborate.

[AstroCyborg]

remember how sony was in the talks to purchase rad after the order released well what happened?

[KwietStorm_BLM]

I never heard anything about Sony looking to purchase Ready At Dawn. But how is that treating them badly just because they didn't? lol is that really your argument?

[rainslacker]

No official statement was given that Sony would buy R@D. Just the same speculation that is given to Quantic Dreams that Sony should buy them. Same as the people that say MS should have brought Epic, or Sony should buy Insomniac. Outside of Quantic Dreams, all these studios would prefer to remain independent.

[johndoe11211]

Are you for freaking real??????

[Bennibop]

Its certainly not a failure from a technical stand point especially the graphics.
I also hope that Sony follow it up with a sequel but one that capitalises on the lessons learnt.

[marinelife9]

The game looks phenomenal animation and graphics wise. Only Uncharted 4 looks to be in the same tier.

[OB1Biker]

Yea we are all aware of the same people who dont miss any opportunity to downplay this game like they r on a mission or something (Hint: top comments). As if Id go on and on commenting about games I dont like. Move on.

You dont like it its fine but dont act like your opinion are facts.
Not saying this game is the best ever or the like but I enjoyed it.

[gangsta_red]

So your opinion of you liking the game is more important than the ones who said they didn't?

Interesting...

[generic-user-name]

Implying the detractors actually played it.

[OB1Biker]

The same people who keep going on and on commenting about games they don't like are somehow 'interesting'
I'm questioning the motives there. I wouldn't waste my time talking on and on about games I dont like,

[rainslacker]

In your comment way up at the top, you imply that the people that like it are wrong to have liked it because "90% of the media and players" didn't like it. Your whole argument is based around there being a huge number of people that don't like it, and when lots and lots of people say they did(more than those who say they didn't) say otherwise, you go back to implying they are wrong.

So no, your opinion isn't any less valid than those that did like it, albeit based on statistics that aren't true, but the way you present your opinion is offensive, rude, and childish.

Hope that clears things up for you and may explain why some people are not quite that fond of you implying others are in the wrong for their opinions.

[MysticStrummer]

"So your opinion of you liking the game is more important than the ones who said they didn't?"

Even the biggest selling games are only bought and played by a fraction of the install base, so I guess every game is a failure if we all use your thought process. More people skipped GTA5 (the biggest selling single title, last I heard) than bought it. Do you suppose all those people reeeaaally love GTA but were prevented somehow from getting it?

[Ezz2013]

What is more interesting is that
you keep reply like you played The Order 1886 and other Ps4 games
when you don't own Ps4.

[MCTJim]

I like this game a lot. I've enjoyed both Ryse and The Order and do not care what so called journalists had to say about either game. I liked the game and hope they learned from the short falls and make another one.

[Cohagen420]

The game stunk, let's all just move on, it happens.

[KwietStorm_BLM]

Learn from it? Some games disappoint/fail/whatever you wanna call it, but that's what it is. This whole banking the PS4's success on The Order is beyond beating a dead horse at this point. It's almost August. The next game will always release, and it should be forgotten, but I guess some don't know how to move on.

[joel01]

I actually enjoyed the order..

[jznrpg]

It isnt a perfect game but not many to none are. Not sure where the author got the expectaion to be the next big thing , they stated that it would push cinematics and graphics which they did imo. I personally enjoyed it, it failed to get good reviews but it did deliver what they stated it to be.

[gangsta_red]

The Order is a classic example of all flash and no substance. When graphics are showcased and celebrated before everything else. It's like a Roland Emmerich movie, sure the special effects are great but everything else is absolutely horrible.

Hopefully a game like this sent a message to other companies that you cannot survive on graphics alone, that gamers also want a deep storyline, gameplay that doesn't have to be revolutionary but it should at least be interesting, more control and just plain and simple fun.

I don't understand how anyone could defend this game. The werewolf boss fights alone should have had anyone willing to go to bat for this game sit down and quietly shake their head in disbelief. The AI was horrible and the design was amateurish, instead of creating varied challenging levels, all they did was throw more waves of the same type of enemies at you as the level progressed.

The story was also laughable with a lot of scratch your head moments like the now famous line of "don't kill anyone", then going on a complete murder spree. Also when they tried to vary the gameplay with stealth like missions, they ended up terrible.

Thank goodness Sony delayed another game to the following month of the very excellent Bloodborne to wash the bitter taste of The Order out. It's almost as if Sony knew what was coming and intentionally delayed both games to not only fill in the void of the beginning of this year but to make sure The Order wouldn't stick around long after it's release. I mean when you articles of Shu playing Bloodborne and not The Order well, you get the idea of what Sony wants from their exclusive games.

[DougLord]

Currently sales are at 980,000 units. So it will clearly break 1mm. I don't think that would be considered a failure.

[NeoGamer232]

Sales do not define the success of a game.

CoD Ghosts sold 25 million copies. Does that make it a successful game?

Maybe commercially it was successful, but I doubt that either non-CoD or CoD fans consider it much of a success.

[parentsbasement]

I gameflyed it , I would have been pissed if I had paid for it though...

[Germany7]

It's a good game, and for a new IP sold relatively well.

"...and was largely responsible for labeling the PS4 as the console with lackluster exclusives."

LOL, because of one game? Gaming journalism it's sad.

[AstroCyborg]

so much damage controlling in the comments

[Yui_Suzumiya]

GOTY contender for me. I love this game.

[NobodyEpic]

He really said 3 million lol.

[WelkinCole]

I enjoyed it. It was different. If it was another 3rd person shooter like Uncharted or Gears but set in London I would have been disappointed.

[mayberry]

Article is wrong on so many levels, To the point I have to assume the writer has an agenda. Such as, "Apart from these two positive notes(Weapon design and graghics), the game failed on every front possible."
Really? lighting, bullet hit response, sound effects, particle effects, voice acting, motion capture and so on are totally broken according to the writer. Smells like a fish, looks like a fish, feels like a fish....

[JohnWayne_]

So I guess this nosred guy only submits negative articles about sony, because that's all I've seen from the articals he has submitted.

[Picnic]

The Order was always said to be filmic and it appears to achieve that. I look upon the game as an encapsulation of the style of what has come before, an easy going entry in to the new generation, rather than trying something groundbreaking. So you get a dash of Uncharted, a dash of Gears of War, a dash of Resident Evil, a dash of Dishonored's kind of environments, a dash of Bisohock Infinite's retro stylings. But the exact aesthetic, steampunkish London, is actually pretty novel.

The first Killzone game was only averagely receive. The Order 1886 has a higher critic and reader review rating than Ryse and there are lots of people who admire Ryse because of its beauty and getting in to the flow of being that character.

With imagination, people could stop looking upon The Order 1886 as some kind of failed attempt at Gears of War (which it never was trying to be) and see that a sequel doesn't necessarily have to be just like the first game. It could take an almost entirely puzzle / environment navigation oriented approach or it could go for a very action packed approach - either way with QTES made more interesting-instead.

To say that this stylish game has no possibility of other things ever happening in that world again is not giving it the chances that Killzone had. The question is- did Ready at Dawn really want to make Order sequels or did they want it to be the stylish, Ryse-like graphical showcase, standalone game (before the big guns like Uncharted 4 come out) that it arguably looks like?

[S2Killinit]

I think they learned that money-journalism can make or break a game's perception among game website visitors. They also learned that even if game website visiting gamers turn against a game, it can still sell like hotcakes.

[Morgue]

I still haven't beat this game yet and bought it at launch. I like what I've played so far and maybe someday I'll finish it.

[theXtReMe1]

Since when is a game that sold millions of copies and was well recieved by gamers and many reviewers... a failure? People have to stop reading and giving these clickbait sites and articles the attention they crave. Its the only way to stop this grocery store tabloid "reporting".