Tag: Order 1886

Completed Order 1886.

The story is told in such a way that the characters have all the context, and don’t try to explain anything to the player. “In medias res”? Which is good in terms of storytelling, but leaves me with a feeling of missing something.
Oh, there are not just werewolves but also vampires. Oh, Lord Hastings that we protected half of the game from rebels is actually a vampire. He’s Jack the Ripper that was mentioned at the start of the game. And the United India Company tries to ship vampires to USA.
Why? I don’t know. Usually those gaps are filled by Codex, but there’s none here.

Surprisingly, I didn’t find the game short and the ending lacking. Yes, it doesn’t wrap much of anything, and it’s a shame we won’t get to see the sequel. But then sequels rarely stand up for expectations anyway. Just ask Assassin’s Creed.
Alistair, the commander of the Knights, turns out to be a werewolf. Interesting that he refers to Lord Hastings as “my breed”, meaning that in this universe vampires and werewolves are somewhat related.
Lord Chancellor knew that fact, but he was unable to kill a child. Instead, he tasks Galahad to do that for him.
I must say this all doesn’t make sense, stories about people that live for hundreds of years rarely do. For example Lafayette is clearly meant to be the historical figure, as he “seen two Revolutions”, and is “the most American Frenchman I know”. But that would mean he’s 86 years old with the look of 30, and that is without the Grail powers, as he’s knighted during the events of the game. Unless of course the American and French revolution happened in this reality around 1860.
We end up with Galahad and Tesla on the run, and martial law declared in London.
It’s now clear who helped Tesla get Galahad out of Thames. It credits he just appears as “misterious man”. Presumably it could be either Arthur himself, or Bots, one of Arthur’s knights, as Ravi mentions him, although saying that he may not be alive after all. But that would explain why Ravi has the same sword design and bottle as other knights.

Don’t get me wrong, it’s cute. It’s just not the masterpiece everyone claimed for it to be. Being exclusive doesn’t make a game into a masterpiece, you see.
Fighting werewolves in a steampunk version of Victorian London is a nice enough idea. But on top of that they put Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table. At first I thought some of the characters were sharing the names. But it turns out they are supposed to be those knights, having lived for hundreds of years. Then there are historical figures, such as Nicola Tesla, that of course supplies us with new weapons.

Gameplaywise, it’s a cover-shooter. But at least the enemies are not as beefy as in Gear of War, and they respect headshots somewhat, so shooting is actually quite satisfying.

There is a strange mechanic for such a game to examine different objects. Something I’d expect in an adventure, but not in a shooter. Maybe just a way to flex.

Or “gun porn”, as you can also rotate some of the new guns that way.

I got excited when I reciver the Lewis machine gun. But it turned out to be a strange contraption that requires you to spray enemies with termite, then ignite them.

The voice acting and cinematography are superb. To have a direct quote from Resident Evil was surprising.

Turns out the knightly names are codenames, and each Knight has also a first and last name. So Perceval is Sebastien Malory (Thomas Malory was the author of Le Morte d’Arthur). And when Sebastien dies in the explosion, Lafayette inherits his codename of Perceval. And they live for hundreds of years due to the Holy Grail they have.