I dreamed of the sky of London. The Order: 1886

WHAT?

Home Autumn Game for PlayStation 4

WHERE?

London, Sony Computer Entertainment Europe

When we figured out all the presentations and interviewed Ryu Virasuria, a game designer, creative director, screenwriter and director The Order: 1886, and part -time of one of the founders and head of the California studio Ready At Dawn, then together with other journalists went on a short walk London, in order to return back to Moscow the next day. It was decided to look at the Apple Store-look after some case.

If you were in Apple stores in Europe or the USA, then you know that there are always a lot of people there. This is a familiar picture: someone just comes to stare around, someone to buy a brand new gadget, and someone wants to sit warm, recharge the phone and use the free Internet.

This was the case this time: a sea of ​​people of various appearance and prosperity, smiling and friendly employees. The only thing is that a small but dense crowd of older school age girls formed in the center of the second floor hall. Walking along the shelves in search of the right case, we accidentally discovered the reason for the meeting: today there will be some presentation of the creators of the Sherlock Sherlock Sherlock Sherlock Sherlock.

Before we could really read the ads of the ad, the girls exploded, a heart -rending cries were heard. We raised our eyes, we immediately understood why – five meters from us, Benedict Cumberbatch (“Startrek: Retribution”, “Fifth power”) and Martin Freeman (the Hobbit Trilum, Peter Jackson, “Office”), one of the most, were one of the most. sought -after actors of Hollywood for today.

You understand, we were, to put it mildly, in confusion. And not only because they went to the store on business and accidentally saw two world stars. Almost more we were struck by the way ordinary townspeople reacted to this. Where thousands of crazy fans would surround the building in New York or Moscow, and every centimeter of the environment would take an unfriendly police along with an even more unfriendly guard, in London to celebrities, it seems, no one was doing. Minus fifty girls, the store worked as usual: people bought new headphones, drank coffee and read something on their tablets, except that they did not look angrily at the source of noise.

This amazing story describes the situation with The Order in the eyes of an unprepared person in many ways. The developers, as the same producers of the television series, brought to the public a real star, an expensive and promising game in, without any exaggeration, a delightful setting, and avid players immediately surrounded her with close attention. But other "visitors of the store" did not take an eyebrow – well, a shooter, well, in the capital of Great Britain of the XIX century, well, nevstgen. So, on behalf of the “ex-guide” should say: this is the case when, no matter how you try, it will not be possible to withstand the stiff indifference, the inner girl-fanatka (ha ha) will still break out.

Legend of King Arthur

After the first first trailer for The Order on E3, it seemed that everything is clear with the game: four heroes, each of whom will clearly have a unique specialization, a lot of evil spirits and weapons – yes this is a pure Left 4 Dead , only from a third person, on the paved streets of London and with mustachioed knights in the first roles. It turned out that everything, to put it mildly, was wrong. The first thing we asked Virasurii the most burning question: will there be a multiplayer in the game? “No, in no form. Not even a cooperative is not planned. We have a purely single story, an exclusively story game, ”he answered. And we tried to collect thoughts in our heads, scattered in different directions, like from a grenade explosion.

[[Bullet]] half of the atmosphere of the game – in details. Each room is forced by furniture, and there is a feeling that someone really lived in it. By the way, it is better to carefully inspect the premises, there you can find something useful-for example, cartridges.

Everything hinted that at least some cooperative was waiting for us, and most recently came out Fuse – also about the four militants fighting with evil, where you are free at any time to switch the character or join a friend on the Internet. It is not yet known whether we can at least play by the plot for different knights in The Order.

In fact, we are almost sure that if Ready At Dawn had more time and, probably, experience (before that the studio made a single game for PSP), they would try to introduce a multiplayer, because he just asks for a concept.

On the other hand, it is to some extent and relief. The developers came up with an amazing setting that looks like a white sheep against the backdrop of plots of other shooters, and we would first of all want to get a really exciting story in it.

[[Bullet]] hard to believe, but this is real rendering on the engine. Such a density and naturalism of the frame is achieved due to many light filters and heavy post -effects.

So, the end of the XIX century, alternative London. For many years the ancient Knight's Order has been protecting humanity from monsters-half-carpets-their population is not very numerous, they are somewhat similar to people, but they have the speed and strength of animals, and therefore are very dangerous.

The war with the monsters has been going on for many years, moreover, internal conflicts have been underway (the first third of the game will be almost exclusively people), and this significantly affected the development of technology. The military calmly communicate with each other on voice communications (the call button and the microphone are on the shoulder – it looks very stylish), in addition to the usual firearm, the impulse rifles, the sky is plowed with dial -up airships, which did not exist in real life at all.

[[Bullet]] Lady Igren and her ill -fated scar. We are sure that behind the history of its receipt lies a separate storyline.

However, even despite such liberties, the developers try to give the game the most authentic look. They themselves call the era in which the events of The Order take place, neovictorian: using all the remarkable elements of that time, the Ready At Dawn staff studied the large archive of old photographs and specially went to London several times to reliably transfer historical places. Actually, a shootout was shown to us in the famous area of ​​Whitchepel, and everything looked very cool – so detailed surroundings in games, it seems, has not yet been. It feels like every purebin on a brickwork was drawn manually.

[Bullet]] The game has a pretty good facial animation, but after The Last of US and Beyond, the imagination is not amazing.

But the number of details and the high resolution of textures, of course, does not bother anyone in itself. First of all, we were delighted with how masterfully Californians figured out the light filters and animation, The Order: 1886 looks like a real film. Honestly, we did not believe when they tried to convince us almost a year ago that the trailer with E3 was made on the game engine. Now they are forced to admit – everything is true. Hasmelive thick fog, voluminous puffs of smoke, playful glare, huddling in the camera, and textured tiles of roofs in Dali – from the technological side the game looks very good.

However, the design is much more impressive. There are few in which games you can see London of that time, I recall only a series of quests about Sherlock Holmes Ukrainians from Frogwarees. But this, of course, is heaven and earth. When the demo just began, they showed us how two heroes, standing on the roof, are trying to understand the combat situation. We thought we were watching an expensive CGI-start, as one of them picked up a double monocular with a strong zoom (an alternative story!), we were shown to the panorama of London through the lenses of the device, and … everything froze.

[Bullet]] An example of an interactive video from Ready at Dawn: You will have to turn a grenade launcher until you find a marking. Otherwise, the narrative will not continue.

We raised a questioning look at Ryu, and he immediately explained: “We, in Ready At Dawn, are large fans of cinematic games and we believe that nothing should knock the player out of the process. Therefore, even in our old games for PSP there were no downloads. At that time, almost everyone had, for many developers and today twenty -second loads – this is normal, but we did not have. But also watch long videos without any participation-death is like, so here and there we try to include the player in the process. Here, for example, it is necessary to manually mark the objects of interest to you with a monocular. ".

In the course of the demo we were shown other variants of gameplay inside the videos. In one stage, our partner opens a wooden box and pulls out a grenade launcher from there, and the management goes for a short time to the player: you need to twist the weapon in your hands to find the manufacturer's marking (the heroes are looking for him).

[[Bullet]] This frame can give some hopes, but do not be deceived – stealth is not planned at all.

In another scene, the knights tried to coordinate the attack of Zeppelins. You again give you a monocular for a few seconds, only this time you also need to give a signal to the bombing. Then it comes to the rescue … ABC MORSE! You need to tap the command with your finger right on the touchpad Dualshock 4! Here you have the non -trivial use of the capabilities of the gamepad.

We asked the developer whether it would be necessary to know the whole ABC Morse and how difficult the commands will be. He reassured us that the game will be quite detailed training, and the “writing” of long words was simplified for the sake of playfulness. The main thing is, after all, in the end, fan and fresh sensations, not total realism. So there should be no problems.

Look around

Ready At Dawn approached the good old QTE unusual. In one episode, after a short positional shootout a la GEARS of WAR , The player attacked the enemy, and they fell together from a small height, breaking through some wooden structure. The standard “click on the button on time” began, we were going to yawn widely, as something interesting happened here. After the hero threw the enemy to the ground and began to thresh with his fists, we got the opportunity to twist the camera. It turned out that at the distance of the outstretched arm on the right was the knife, and it was worth looking at it – the icon of the button appeared nearby. After pressing, the character grabbed the weapon and stuck it into the neck of the enemy. Curtain.

[Bullet]] But the stages will definitely be different in nature and pace. You can catch your breath from shootouts, study the world and … gain fear.

Several conclusions can be drawn from this scene. Firstly, the game is quite tough: blood, terrible stab wounds, harsh vocabulary-everything is like we love. Secondly, QTE will be relatively liberal. They didn’t press the button in time – they got it on the ribs, but you will have a couple more attempts to give back. Thirdly, the same variability: you could twist the camera and find a knife, but you couldn’t do it, then the scene would simply end in a different way.

[[Bullet]] During QTE, the picture loses in color and becomes a little greased. Pay attention to the knife on the right – it can be used.

But if in different aspects the developers try to come up with something new, then this, apparently, does not apply to the shooting part. We saw quite a bit, but not very impressed. There are nothing wrong with the shelters in the shelters themselves; V The Last of Us , For example, they are perfectly executed and do not bother to the very end (although fighting on fists there is still more interesting). In The Order, a physicist alerted us: after each shot, the rifle in the hands of the hero flew up into the heaven from recoil, the enemies reacted rather sluggishly to the hits, the shelters were placed unnaturally-in general, something was wrong.

Perhaps – we were simply shown a faded moment, perhaps – this is an author's vision, another technique for strengthening pseudoralism. Everything is possible. But it is also possible that the developers who have not made a https://sister-site.org/voodoodreams/ single shooter before, is simply hard to shoot. We are waiting for a fresh gameplay demo and we hope that it will dispel our fears.

Sir, where your mustache

The main character of the game will be Sir Galahad, and Sir Persival, Marquis de Lafayette and Lady Igrain will perform as his companions. It is difficult to judge by a small demo in what relations they are, but the authors made all heroes of different ages and gender for a reason. Persival, the experienced and glorified knight of the Order, should become Galahada a kind of mentor, the same age as Lafayette – a faithful comrade, and Igren, hmm, a lady of the heart.

[Bullet]] The game will have point destruction, plus some surfaces, such as fabric and wood, will be shot.

When the girl was shown in the frame for the first time, we immediately noticed that some scar would be seen on her neck. It was worth addressing the hemdester the question of his origin, as he almost jumped with joy: “I waited all day to be asked about it! Yes, you are right, this is a scar!.. True, while we cannot reveal the details … "

[[Bullet]] Creation of personal animation.

We also asked Mr. Virasuria how they decided on a rather bold step in the design of the heroes. Usually, in games with several characters, everyone is trying to give a bright individual appearance so that they are easy to distinguish: a blond, red -haired, bearded, fat man and so on. Now take a look at the screenshots adorning this article – three dark -haired men with a thick hairline on the face will look at you from them. Yes, they are all not similar to each other in close consideration, they gave everyone appearance (and they were completely played) different actors, but during the game to understand who is who is, it is impossible – only dark tops and almost the same military costumes are visible.

“We wanted them to resemble real people, so yes, in some way they are similar. But when you see them in the game world and you will get used to it a little of them, there will be no problems. Heroes must be different, but it is worth expressing it in their character and actions, and not rivet stereotypical characters for stereotypical characters ”.

Immediately after the announcement, we drew attention to The Order for many reasons, but first of all we were interested in the setting. And not only because the great cities of the old times we see only in Assassin’s Creed. In the 19th century, many historical personalities lived in London of the 19th century, and if they competently introduce them into the narrative even as episodic characters, this can greatly revive the plot. For example, the long monologue of Benjamin Franklin about the advantages of mature women has become almost the most memorable moment of the entire AC3.

Virasuria did not want to reveal the details for a long time, but in the end he surrendered: one way or another in The Order: 1886 We will meet the outstanding inventors of Nikola Tesla and Thomas Edison, as well as the author of Romanov about Sherlock Holmes Kolmes Konan Doyle. We do not know how large their roles will be, but a meeting with such personalities in absentia will excite the imagination.

And in general – we are very waiting for a meeting with the game itself. In many ways, she impressed us, somewhere surprised, and in some ways a little alert, but I want to wander on the streets of Old London on my own, fight with evil spirits and find out what happened to Mila Igrain. Who knows, maybe she was bitten by one of the knights and now she also faces the inevitable – a thick black mustache, unstressed even by the most sharp blade.