‘The Order: 1886’ Selling Well Despite Generally Poor Reviews
The Order: 1886 is short and the story makes no sense, but it’s selling at a rather impressive rate. That is the weird dynamic that is haunting the newest Playstation 4 exclusive title. Despite the fact that The Order: 1886 has been almost universally panned as a bad game, consumers are buying enough copies that it made the top of the U.K. Sales charts in its first week.
According to Attack of the Fanboy, The Order: 1886 has also hit the top of the Australian sales charts. The sales numbers for copies of the game in the United States won’t be known for quite a while but it’s a safe bet it’s selling well here too. Some of the top sales numbers can be explained because the game is one of the first big titles to hit the store shelves this year. Still, talk about how good The Order: 1886 has looked likely drove sales as well.
This game was one that was hyped as truly showing off what a console like the Playstation 4 can do with today’s games. The visuals seem to show the console really is plenty powerful. The problem that critics have been talking about is the fact that the game is entirely too short and it seems like it was thrown together rather quickly. This last part is a bit odd considering how long the title was in development.
Most people have claimed they could play through The Order: 1886 in around five hours. Some people say the story tops out at nine hours. That does indeed seem short when talking about a full-fledged $60 game. The real problem with the game though, as the Fresno Bee points out, is that the story doesn’t really seem to make any sense. Certainly it’s nice that players are able to jump into the action right away. But most critics seem to agree that the story was pieced together in a way that doesn’t really mesh.
Most critics also agree that the game presents quite a bit of unrealized potential. The story kicks off with the heroes trying to track down Jack the Ripper in this interesting retelling of British history. It also seems the retelling could have been longer for this very reason. Instead, the alternate universe presented in the story is hastily thrown together and cut short. There was a lot to play with and that seemed to be something that the game’s creators were excited about. In the end, despite solid sales numbers The Order: 1886 failed to deliver.
