Sir Galahad is my favorite Round Table knight. Beats Lancelot or Gawain by far. Galahad’s pure. He finds the Holy Grail. He gets raptured. Raptured! Most of all, the guy was a fighter and he did it all for good.
So when a Sir Galahad is the protagonist of a video game, it piques my interest. And if the plot is a new old England, and the knights are back, then that’s a killer storyline. The Order: 1886 has that killer plot going for it. It’s old England (nineteenth century), but it’s a new alternate world where mutants roam the streets and an order of knights protects humanity (and the rich).
The gameplay trailer for the single-player only game is a major let-down. It showcases its 2.40:1 1920×800 graphics, but it doesn’t quite take advantage of it. At least not in this trailer, which takes place in the cramped quarters of a ship. Some lost opportunity for eye candy. And the gameplay is a linear, duck-hunt shooter not much more than mobile games like Frontline Commando. Hide, bad guys pop up, shoot, hide again, repeat….
Of course, the real game will be more than that, but the gameplay trailer didn’t leave me wanting this ASAP. Also, the lack of multiplayer makes me think the story is all that’s intriguing about The Order: 1886.
And the weapons? There’s a shotgun and a machine-pistol, which is cool but nothing incredibly original. Maybe some actual knight action would have been better – long swords and halberds. We need a real Knights of the Round Table game. With multiplayer.
The Order: 1886 is out on PS4 on February 20, 2015.