Walking through the fog-drenched streets of a Neo-Victorian London in The Order 1886, you’ll probably find yourself stopping. Just stopping. You’ll stare at the way light reflects off a damp cobblestone or how the fabric of Galahad’s coat bunches up as he moves. It’s been over a decade since Ready at Dawn released this title as the "graphical showcase" for the PlayStation 4, and honestly, it still puts modern PS5 and Xbox Series X titles to shame in the art direction department.
But here is the thing.
When people talk about this game, they usually talk about it like a beautiful disaster. It was the poster child for the "graphics vs. gameplay" debate that dominated the mid-2010s. It was short. It was cinematic to a fault. It had those black bars at the top and bottom of the screen—letterboxing—that made some players feel like they were watching a movie they occasionally got to participate in. Looking back on it now, in an era where games are often bloated with 100 hours of repetitive map-clearing, The Order 1886 feels like a weird, fossilized relic of a different philosophy.
Why Everyone Was So Mad in 2015
If you weren't there for the launch, the vitriol is hard to describe. People were genuinely angry. The primary sticking point was the length. Some players were finishing the game in five or six hours. For a $60 purchase, that felt like a slap in the face to a lot of folks who were used to the "dollar-per-hour" value metric that still haunts gaming discourse today.
Ru Weerasuriya, the creative director at Ready at Dawn, defended the game’s brevity by saying they wanted to tell a tight, focused story. They succeeded at that, but the market wasn't ready to pay premium prices for a weekend rental experience. It didn't help that the gameplay felt "safe." You had cover-based shooting that felt like a slightly heavier version of Gears of War, and quick-time events (QTEs) that popped up during boss fights, which even then felt a bit dated.
The game also took itself incredibly seriously.
There’s no "meta" humor here. There’s no winking at the camera. It’s a story about King Arthur’s knights living into the 19th century thanks to a substance called "Black Water," fighting a losing war against "Half-breeds"—which are basically werewolves. It’s gritty. It’s dark. It’s unapologetically melodramatic.
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The Technical Wizardry That Hasn’t Been Matched
We need to talk about the visuals because that is the soul of The Order 1886. To this day, the material response is incredible. If you look at the brass on a Tesla-designed weapon, it looks like brass. Not "video game metal," but actual, tarnished, heavy brass. This was achieved through a physics-based rendering system that was way ahead of its time.
The developers used a specific trick: they rendered the game at 1920x800.
By cutting off the top and bottom of the screen, they saved a massive amount of processing power. They funneled every single spare cycle into the character models and the lighting. It’s why the transitions between cutscenes and gameplay are virtually seamless. You’ll be watching a conversation, and suddenly the camera settles behind Galahad’s shoulder, and you realize oh, I’m supposed to be walking now. * Subsurface Scattering: Look at the characters' ears when they stand in front of a light source. You can see the light passing through the cartilage and skin.
- Fabric Physics: The way capes and jackets react to movement isn't just a canned animation; it feels weighted.
- The "Soft" Look: Unlike many modern games that look overly sharp and digital, this game has a filmic softness that hides the "game-iness" of the world.
It’s ironic. We have ray tracing now. We have SSDs that eliminate load times. Yet, few games have the sheer cohesion that this one managed on hardware that is now essentially a paperweight.
The Tesla Connection and the World Building
One of the coolest parts of the game—and something I think many missed—is the role of Nikola Tesla. In this universe, he’s basically the "Q" to the Knights’ James Bond. He provides the high-tech weaponry that allows humans to actually stand a chance against supernatural threats.
The Arc Induction Lance is a highlight. Shooting bolts of electricity that chain between enemies feels visceral. The Thermite Rifle is another one. You spray a cloud of magnesium-rich dust over a group of rebels and then fire a flare into it to create a localized inferno. It’s satisfying in a way that the standard pistols and rifles aren't.
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The problem? You only get to use these "fun" guns in very specific, scripted segments. For 70% of the game, you’re using standard-issue Victorian firearms. It’s a massive tease. The game builds this incredible world where science and myth collide, but then it forces you into a very narrow corridor where you can only play with the toys when the developers say it’s okay.
Is It Actually Good or Just Pretty?
That’s the million-dollar question. If you play The Order 1886 today, you’ll likely find the story more engaging than people gave it credit for. The voice acting is top-tier. Steve West’s performance as Sir Galahad (Sebastian Knight) is understated and weary. He doesn't feel like a superhero; he feels like a soldier who has been alive for too long.
The narrative takes some genuine risks. It deals with systemic corruption, the cost of immortality, and the realization that the "monsters" you’ve been fighting might not be the real villains. But the ending... man, the ending is abrupt. It’s clearly the first act of a trilogy that we are never going to get.
Sony now owns the IP, but Ready at Dawn was acquired by Meta (formerly Facebook) in 2020 and subsequently faced significant layoffs and restructuring in 2023 and 2024. The chances of a sequel are basically zero. This leaves the game as a beautiful, incomplete thought. A "what if" that sits on your shelf.
What Most People Get Wrong About the Length
The "six-hour" complaint was always a bit of an exaggeration, or at least a narrow view. If you actually take your time to look at the world, inspect the items (which you can rotate in 3D, a feature L.A. Noire made popular), and soak in the atmosphere, it's more like an eight or nine-hour experience.
In 2026, we are seeing a shift back toward shorter, "prestige" games. Games like Hellblade or the recent Alan Wake 2 show that audiences are willing to accept shorter runtimes if the quality is high enough. The Order 1886 was just ten years too early for that shift. It was judged by the standards of Skyrim and Grand Theft Auto, which just isn't fair to what it was trying to be.
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How to Experience it Best Today
If you have a PS5, you can play this via backward compatibility. It doesn't have a 60fps patch, unfortunately. It’s still locked at 30fps. Normally, I’d complain about that, but here, it actually works. The 30fps lock combined with the motion blur and the letterboxing makes it feel like a heavy, cinematic experience. It’s one of the few games where I don't think 60fps would actually make it better. It might actually break the "spell" of the visuals.
Here is what I suggest:
- Turn off the HUD. The game is intuitive enough that you don't need icons cluttering the screen.
- Play it in the dark. The lighting engine is the star of the show.
- Pay attention to the background details in Whitechapel. The environmental storytelling is dense.
The Order 1886 remains a fascinating failure. It’s a game that succeeded at everything it tried to do technically while failing to understand what the audience of 2015 actually wanted. It’s a museum piece. A very, very pretty museum piece that still deserves a afternoon of your time, if only to see what "peak" PS4 looks like.
To get the most out of your time with the game, focus on the "Knight's Arsenal" collectibles. They aren't just for trophies; they provide the only real lore depth for the Tesla tech that the main cutscenes skip over. Also, don't rush the stealth sections. They are widely hated, but if you treat them like a puzzle rather than an action sequence, they are much less frustrating.
Check the second-hand market or wait for a PS Store sale. Paying more than $20 for it in 2026 is a tough sell, but for the price of a movie ticket and popcorn, it’s one of the most memorable visual experiences you can have in gaming. It's a snapshot of a moment when the industry thought "cinematic" was the only way forward, before we all realized that sometimes, we just want to play a game.