The Order: 1886 Tips and Tricks

10 tips for playing Ready at Dawn’s PS4 exclusive

It seems like it’s been a long time since The Order: 1886 was announced, but at last, you can play it in all its graphical glory on your PS4.

But, for all our hopes and dreams for the game, it’s not quite the third-person-shooter we were hoping it was going to be.

You can read our full The Order: 1886 review for our overall verdict on this new PS4 exclusive, but you might want to know a few tips and tricks to help you get started with the game.

If you have any of your own tips to add, feel free to do so in the comments below.

1. Grab ammo whenever and wherever you can

Ammo is scarce in The Order: 1886. We found ourselves caught short on a few occasions where we were left with nothing but our relatively puny sidearm. It’s great up close, but at range, enemies are blurred and a job to take down.
 
Ammo caches will be highlighted and appear occasionally throughout a mission, but it’s better to grab them off fallen enemies as and when you down them.

Just press triangle to pick up ammo/interact with dropped weapons whenever you can.

2. You can only sprint when the game lets you

Stop clicking in that left stick every five seconds in between cutscenes. It won’t work. Trust us we’ve tried it.
 
Because of the way The Order: 1886 works cutscenes flow into playable sections beautifully, but during these non-action scenes, you can forget about moving quickly. It’s incredibly frustrating, especially when levels are so designed that you’ll need to navigate the scenery before you can actually get to your target – it’s almost like Remedy are making you appreciate how amazing the graphics and environments are every second of the game.
 
It’s basically Gears of War. You know when you can’t sprint that something is happening behind the scenes. So try and be patient.
 
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3. There’s no way to turn the tutorial prompts off

There are quite a few pop-ups that really detract from the near seamless experience of The Order: 1886, which expertly blends cutscenes with playable content. We’ve tried everything we can think of, but there’s no way to turn these prompts off, even though they are usually telling you pretty obvious tips – such as push up and X to climb, L2 to aim and R2 to fire etc.

You’ll either have to endure them, or stop playing altogether. They’re your only options on this one.
 

4. Wait until the locks turn opaque when using the lockpick

The lockpick is introduced in the fourth chapter of the game. It’s a vibrating beast of a thing and can take a little while to get to grips with. You’ll need to hold L2, then slowly rotate the right stick until the pin lines up with the lock. When the lock bolt turns from a smoky, translucent white to a more opaque shade, hit R2. It took us a while to figure out but it’s a satisfying feeling when it happens.

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5. Use the scenery to your advantage

The Order: 1886 is chock full of destructible scenery. Whether it’s a perfectly positioned porceline pot, a glass screen or even some bottles behind a bar, you can use them to your advantage. Use them to scare enemies out of cover with a well timed shot, or just shoot them down to give yourself a perfect view of all your enemies’ entry routes to the so-called ambush.

6. Death is quick

Of course, doing so opens our hero Galahad up to a lot more gunfire. And you’ll need to watch yourself because The Order: 1886 isn’t forgiving when it comes to taking damage and making you keel over. You get one revive thanks to a small vile of which you and your buddies seem to have an endless supply. When you do flash red, you can get yourself one more chance by swigging from said vile by pressing triangle when prompted, then repeatedly tapping X to get yourself back up again.

But if you’re shot while you’re getting up – which happened to us a lot – you’ll be pushing up daisies immediately.
 
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7. And stealth sections = permadeath

You might think the cover and shoot mechanics are a bit shonky and unforgiving when the screen is flashing red, but you just wait until you get to those pesky, and often unwelcome, stealth sections of the game. You can forget the vile in these stealth sections, as if you get spotted, that’s it. Dead.

This instant-fail becomes ridiculously frustrating later on in the game, so don’t say we didn’t warn you.
 

8. Watch all the cut-scenes, all the time

The same can be said for cutscenes. The Order: 1886 has quite the penchant for fairly lengthy cutscenes. But you’ll need to pay attention to them because they’re not your average cutscenes. Just like Heavy Rain or any other David Cage game, you’ll notice that The Order: 1886 has interspersed these cutscenes with QTE. And these QTE will get you all the time.

You’ll be settling back to take in some of The Order: 1886’s excellent dialogue and graphics, and suddenly you’ll need to hold triangle there, hit X here or even push a right analogue stick or two.

Either that or you’ll be watching that cutscene over, and over, again.
 
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9. Enjoy the weird and wonderful weapons

The Order: 1886 features some wonderfully unique and brilliant weapons. There’s the electric wave spewing Arc Rifle or the Thermite Rifle – R2 to spray an area with white gas and R1 to ignite it with a magnesium grenade – just for an example.

But, as awesome and weird these weapons are, your time with them is brief. Enjoy messing around with them while you can.

10. Spot those Easter Eggs

Ready at Dawn has strewn a few funny objects into the environment of The Order: 1886. If you’re the sort of gamer who likes to explore every nook and cranny available in a game, there’s not much to play with there. But there are some great articles, posters and other merch left lying about on tables and things that will give you a chuckle if you care to look.

We even spotted a randomly placed Sack Boy from LittleBigPlanet in one section. Go find him.