"Well, circumstantial evidence can be a tricky animal, my dear Sir Percival. You may think it is pointing at one thing, but shift your point of view slightly, and you may find it pointing in an equally-uncompromising manner at something entirely different."
--Commissioner, The Order: 1886
"Never accept. Always question."
--Sir Percival, The Order: 1886
"I have seen things I am condemned to remember. Civilizations born and destroyed by humanity's incessant greed. The pride of men slaughtering each other in the name of their so-called God."
--Sir Lucan, The Order: 1886
I was genuinely surprised by this game. I initially played not expecting anything too grand or unique--and some of those expectations were correct--but the game defied those expectations in some very clever and original ways. Having completed the campaign, I am pleased I spent around seven hours entering the game's spectacular reimagining of 19th century England.
What did I think of the specifics and generalities? Read below to see!
Production Values
As expected from a Sony PlayStation 4 title, this game has excellent production values.
The amazing graphics are clear, smooth, and require almost no loading time from what I recall. Moments where your character picks up objects like a newspaper, pipe, or a gun and rotates them with his hand showcase very realistic hand movements. Extraordinary voice acting heightens the sense of realism exactly as voice acting in gaming needs to, and when combined with the splendid graphics the wonder of the experience is compounded dramatically.
Also, the music is often beautiful, tonally appropriate, and greatly adds to the impact of some parts of the story. The title theme, called The Knight's Theme, is somber, haunting, and I perceived certain moments of the track to be stirring. Listening to it when the title menu appeared after I beat the game and thus finished the masterful and emotional ending, the sadness and emotion of the music became more apparent. Last Man Standing, which plays at the end of the game, is also a beautiful piece of music.
As an example of the detail and world-building in this game, let me explain what happened once while I was playing. Once I let my character hold up a collectible document as I read something on my iPad, meaning I was looking away for several minutes, and to my pleasant surprise other characters began conversing in a very lifelike and well-written way. This completely non-mandatory and secondary dialogue was very natural. THAT incident alone exudes a very realistic sense of setting and proves that the creators intentionally crafted even minor details with care.
Gameplay
Controls and gameplay style are the generic, expected third-person shooter variety. The setting, story, and occasional fantasy weapon are undeniably what set this game apart, not the controls. The combat can be fun but remains generic. Even a bullet time type mechanic that slows time so the player can fire multiple bullets at high speed into nearby enemies is another feature seen numerous times before in gaming. Fighting bosses is exhilarating, but some of the minor shootouts can seem mundane towards the end. Overall, though, the cinematic story and characters are the major strengths of this game, not the aspects I called generic.
Also, a Sackboy doll collectible references another Sony series LittleBigPlanet. I just wanted to mention that it's fun toying with a cute Sackboy collectible.
Story
The game opens with your character, hands shackled to a stone well-like implement, being dunked in water in a first person perspective. Saving the plot unraveling for later, the game almost immediately launches into a quick-time event where you escape by pulling your arm from a weak shackle, impaling one guard in the neck, and drowning the other. Weak and disoriented, your currently unnamed character stages a dramatic escape by bluffing the guards with an empty revolver. You witness guards shooting at something animal-like, growling and powerful. You physically fight with a guard. And eventually you leap off of a high wall into water below, Kratos style.
Then the game begins showing how your character, named Grayson, came to find himself in that scenario. Amidst the wonderful setting of an alternate late 19th century England, your character serves a group called the Order, presently dispatched to quell a rebel uprising. He is a Knight, a member of the Order's Round Table dedicated to protecting England. But this history is very unusual. Elevators, tesla guns, blimp airships, wireless communications technology--this 1886 England boasts some very impressive technological advancements not seen in the real world until decades and centuries later. The scientific breakthroughs complement the subtle references to the presence of Christianity in the story [1].
You quickly meet with your close friend and companion Knight known as Lady Igraine. Conversation reveals you trained her in the past, and the present observations demonstrate that you are at least sometimes partners. This 1800s England is actually very egalitarian; it lets women serve alongside men and allows them to be partners and mentors to each other. Yay!
After fighting some escaped convicts you find another Knight named Lafayette, to whom Grayson says "We do not fight men." Lafayette's response indicates that they combat things called "half-breeds". Exploring subterranean walkways to find more commits after you split up from Igraine and Lafayette, Grey overhears distant police officers comment in shock about some bloody corpses they found, with one mentioning that a particular body is missing an arm. Are the escapees responsible for this, or is something more fearsome?
In the underground structure you encounter an inmate who transforms quickly into a Lycan, the name for this type of half-breed. "One of our escapees is a half-breed," Grayson reports into his shoulder-mounted radio. After killing the Lycan and overhearing a conversation between a police commissioner and another Knight about how circumstantial evidence can point to truths quite different than what we may imagine they do (this is actually very clever foreshadowing)
The Lord Chancellor credits King Arthur with founding the Order in a council meeting after chapter one. The Order's members assume the names of Knights of the Round Table--Gallahad, Percival/Sebastian, etc.
A rebellion has surfaced, attracting the attention of the council members, yet the council leader--the Lord Chancellor--seems concerned about internal matters. "I remind the knights here assembled that the threat to this order comes not only from without, but within."
These words, as the game unfolds, become unknowingly prophetic.
Another use of foreshadowing appears when a terrorized woman complains about how she didn't know until now that someone she was close to was "the Ripper", but I think she was confused and traumatized.
Actually, as the end of the game unveils, she was definitely mistaken.
(SPOILERS!!!!!!)
Eventually, a plot revelation uncovers the fact that the cordial Lord Hastings of the United India Company is actually a vampire and the legendary serial killer called Jack the Ripper, secretly plotting to launch an assault on other regions of the world using half-breeds as biological weapons. An attempt to expose his identity leads to the discovery that one of Grayson's fellow Knights, Sir Lucan, or Alastair, is a Lycan who has kept his nature from the entire around Table for years. Failure to stop Lucan and Hastings ends in Grayson's arrest and trial for treason and attempted murder of Lord Hastings, who does a splendid job manipulating people into thinking Grayson had maliciously plotted to kill an innocent leader of an important company.
The escape sequence mentioned at the beginning follows, with a climactic confrontation between Grayson and Sir Lucan, the betrayer, occurring inside Nikola Tesla's laboratory. Yes, he is in this game!
After defeating Lucan, Grayson questions him. How could he betray the Order? How could he lie to his father and the other Knights?
"I do what I must, to protect my kind. We fight only for our right to live!" Lucan says in response. "I have seen things I am condemned to remember," he continues. "Civilizations born and destroyed by humanity's incessant greed. The pride of men slaughtering each other in the name of their so-called God."
Alastair/Lucan explains that he loves Igraine and his father like his "own blood" just before his father, the Lord Chancellor, emerges and reveals that he has always known Alastair was a half-breed. Long ago he killed Alastair's father but could not force himself to kill Alastair, who was only a child at the time. As the scene comes to a very emotional close, the Lord Chancellor gives Grayson a gun and leaves, wanting Grayson to kill Alastair.
"Men were never meant to live this life," he says as he departs.
The story them ends briefly after with a brilliant shot and chillingly haunting music as Galahad reluctantly pulls the trigger and shoots the man he once called brother.
Intellectual Content
The existence of Lycans and vampires, of course, is of obvious cryptozoological relevance. I hoped the game would try to explain their origins, but, as I explained concerning wendigos in my review of another epic PS4 game called Until Dawn, the primary legends about the birthplace of both are not really incorporated. I love cryptozoology, so I appreciated the inclusion of these types of "half-breeds". As for their existence in real life, as with wendigos and aliens, I am an agnostic on the matter. Could these creatures exist? Of course; there's no logical impossibility that prevents this from being the case or that proves they never existed at one time. But we cannot currently know either way. Still, I enjoyed their presence in this game.
The commissioner' statement about circumstantial evidence (quoted at the very top of this review) ends up brilliantly foreshadowing a massive plot twist. The second half of the game excellently shows that we do not truly know people we believe we can trust. Lord Hastings was secretly both a vampire and Jack the Ripper and was additionally planning a takeover of distant areas. Protected by his renown and public image, he is never suspected at all during Grayson's illicit arrest and trial. Indeed, evil people can prosper when their evil is concealed just enough so as not to arouse widespread panic or awareness. Even the mid-credits scene does not indicate that anyone else has discovered the true identity of Lord Hastings, possibly implying that, despite the minor setback of the warehouse burning caused by Grayson and his companion, he will still release half-breeds into unsuspecting territories. As with stories like the first Saw movie, The Order: 1886 is the rare tale where the villain(s) either triumph or are left to freely continue in their villainy.
I want to dissect the end of this game. The ending cinematic is surprisingly emotional as it depicts three people with different motivations and ideals baring themselves and revealing their demons and their struggles. At the finale, following the fight where Grayson confronts Lucan as described in the "Story" section, he asks Lucan how he can justify the depravities committed by his kind, the Lycans.
Alastair responds, "My kind are no more evil than yours."
The truth of this statement gets absorbed by Grayson. And with good reason, for this is no minor charge. The moment highlights two things: 1) although the humans viewed the Lycans as inhumane brutes, at least some Lycans (or one) are not heartless monsters and 2) the humans have at times been just as brutal and evil as the creatures they treated as outcasts. How often do people demonize others, only to practice the very evils they think they denounce in a different, more subtle form?
I will end this section with comments about how the Lord Chancellor handles the situation when he finds Grayson and Lucan conversing after their brawl. The Lord Chancellor ultimately seeks to suppress the truth about Grayson's innocence and the presence of a Lycan within the Order's Round Table--all to ensure that there is no uproar that destroys the Order. Like Alfred Pennyworth at the conclusion of Christopher Nolan's masterpiece The Dark Knight, the Lord Chancellor sacrifices truth for superficial peace in a time of chaos. He appears during the end scene, explains himself, and then leaves after handing Grayson a revolver and telling him to shoot Alastair because he cannot bear to do it himself. He embodies for the story the type of person who believes that an obligation to conformity and stability is higher than an obligation to truth itself.
"So I am to be sacrificed. How many more must die to insure an eternal silence?" Grayson asks.
The Lord Chancellor replies by verbally confirming his commitment to utilitarian ethics.
Sometimes truth seems unbearable--after all, it can shatter our preferences, deny us our longings, and contradict our hopes. Truth has the power to devastate us or to liberate us. Sometimes it can seem easier or even morally right to conceal the truth in the name of bringing comfort and hope to others, but we must remember during those moments that there is ultimately no such thing as an escape from the truth. Eventually, in one way or another, it will hunt us down and force us to acknowledge its existence and its inescapability. We can spend so much of our lives hiding from truth. If we desire to know reality and God, then we cannot be like the Lord Chancellor.
As Alfred later realizes in The Dark Knight Rises, "Maybe it's time we all stop trying to outsmart the truth and let it have its day."
Conclusion
The Order: 1886 may have generic controls and largely standard formulaic third-person shooter gameplay, but these features are not negative, just generic. The story, setting, characters, and unique science fiction weaponry set this game apart from other games that have identical controls and style.
It may be a brief experience--it takes about 6-7 hours to complete, there are no bonus features like in Sony's God of War games, and there are no replay incentives besides missed trophies and simple desire to see the game again--but it can be very enjoyable if the player allows himself or herself to be immersed in the story. This version of 1886 England is creative and intriguing indeed. Still, I would hope that any possible sequels include additional game modes, rewards for replaying the game, and a longer glimpse into this beautiful but dark digital world.
If you want a lengthy open world game which you can replay again and again and still seem to discover new aspects of the world each time, this is not the game. But if you desire a game with superb atmosphere, a unique alternate history, an immersive cinematic style, and a story that reveals how fragile and hollow our trust in other people can turn out to be, then do not hesitate to experience The Order: 1886.
When I engaged in my first playthrough, I played in a noisy environment where I couldn't hear very well and thus didn't understand the narrative very well, and the impact of the game was lessened. But when I became familiar with the story and studied the visuals upon a second playthrough, I was astonished anew at the quality of the storytelling and graphical detail--and when I saw the ending for the second time I almost cried as the camera faded to black. In fact, while watching the final shot I was overcome by a sense of moral outrage over the escape of Hastings, the charges against Grayson, and the fact that a conflicted man had to kill someone he viewed as a brother in order to preserve a society he had been permanently banished from.
I cherish games that can provoke such internal thoughts. The world needs more of them.
This game certainly demonstrates the power of the PS4 and the capacity for video games to tell incredible stories in almost-living worlds. If you want a deep and fascinating story, prepare to enjoy this title deeply.
Content:
1. Violence: A third-person shooter, this game involves shooting and killing human and Lycan opponents. There are also brawls and some blood, especially in scenes where the player confronts large Lycan full-breeds.
2. Profanity: Some of the knights of the Order sometimes say "F-ck" or other words classified as profanity by our society.
3. Sexuality: At least twice the main character passes through a brothel (not to sleep with prostitutes, however), and for several moments a mostly clothed woman is shown sitting on top of a naked man's lap.
4. Nudity: In the scene described just above, the player's character Grayson fights the man who had the woman atop him, the woman having only one breast uncovered. The man, however, is nude and his entire body, including his exposed penis, is briefly shown (and I do mean briefly) when he stands up.
[1]. For instance, a promotional poster in Chapter 3 with a cross on the top advertises an upcoming event called "RATIONS, RINSE, AND REDEMPTION", where a play called "FOUR PENNIES" will be presented and the viewers will receive a meal, "SLEEP ACCOMMODATIONS", and the "COMPASSION OF THE LORD". This seemed to be targeted towards the poor and homeless--and it made me smile to think of the church doing such a thing. When the Order could not address the problems of the poor in this alternate historical timeline, the church did so instead.
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