The Order: 1886. The term mixed reaction could have been created for this game, so we decided to see what all the fuss was about.

Let’s open by saying that The Order 1886 is probably the best looking game that’s been released on this generation of consoles. Calling it visually stunning just doesn’t do it justice, because it’s one of those rare games that comes around every few years that makes you sit up and take notice. Unfortunately that’s where most of the praise for the game lies, because once you manage to look past the visuals, which to be fair will keep you impressed right until the end, the game falls down in a lot of ways that left us fairly disappointed.

Set in an alternate history, and based in London, 1886, the story is centred on an order of knights who keep the world safe by fighting a war against half-breed monsters(they’re basically werewolves). The knights are aided by technological advances far ahead of their time, like wireless communication, electric stun guns, and a bunch of weapons that'll make you Google what kind of guns they actually had back in the day. Add all that to the magic potion that extends life and replenishes health, and you'd have to say the war is pretty even considering the half-breeds are massive.

You’re not going to find us complaining about weapons here. They look cool, and it’s pretty fun to run around London in 1886 firing machine guns, but when that novelty wears off, you’re left wondering if the game really needed to be set in this world.

The beauty of an era like this should be its simplicity, which would set it aside from every other generic shooter game. When you add in the advanced weaponry, the setting becomes more like a strange wallpaper choice than something that’s meant to add to the story. Sure there’s mentions of the era, with Thomas Edison’s name popping up, and references to Jack the Ripper, but it’s all quite superficial, and leads to nowhere.

The combat is also fairly basic. Action sequences revolve around pressing a button once after its icon flashes on the screen, or in the most tasking of fights, you mash the same button a few times. It all comes across a little primitive, and thrown-together. This takes the excitement out of those scenes when you’re not just shooting at things, which would have been a nice escape.

But most of this is knit-picking, and these flaws aren’t all too bad. Something that saves the game is the fact that it isn’t long enough to expose these flaws to the point that they actually become that frustratingly. Playing at a decent pace, and taking the time to do a few of the extras, you’ll still only get about seven, maybe eight, hours of game time.

That could be seen as a big problem, particularly when you consider the cost of the game(€75), but if you’re looking for a fun shooter game, with an interesting story that’ll keep you entertained, you could do a lot worse. Still, I wouldn’t be running out to drop the cash on this.

The fact that this is a next gen game automatically increases the price, which is fine as long as the quality of the gaming rises too, but for The Order 1886, that’s just isn’t the case. If this is a series dipping its toe in the water, like the original Assassin’s Creed, we’d rather wait for the next instalment.