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Ready at Dawn (TO 1886) self-publishing its games, hires Paul Sams (Blizzard) as CEO

I-hate-u

Member
I just realized how many SSM collaboration titles the didn't fair well in the past couple of years. Twisted Metal, Starhawk, Playstation All Stars, and now 1886.
 
I just realized how many SSM collaboration titles the didn't fair well in the past couple of years. Twisted Metal, Starhawk, Playstation All Stars, and now 1886.

I always thought they were the supporting role, with mimimal interference from their side. I vaguely remember such a case wIth Thatgamecompany only using the SSM space for development.
 
RAD has technical prowess and obviously very talented people.

But they are not very good at building franchise... or original games per se. They should consider themselves to be port/spin off developers like hexadrive. They are great making games with already established formula (like god of war), just can't seem to handle when they are given totally blank paper.
They just have no ideas about controls, systems, story, pacing, etc. They've shown with the order that they have no clue what good button mapping is.

They have talented programmers but they shouldn't have chosen a genre their game designers have no clue about, it's never good to reinvent the wheel when TLOU came out recently and they could've adopted a set of controls that work with both single player and multiplayer, to toss side work by others was simply hubris.

People kept referring to them as "talented", outside of programming I'm not sure if that even holds true.
 

nib95

Banned
They just have no ideas about controls, systems, story, pacing, etc. They've shown with the order that they have no clue what good button mapping is.

They have talented programmers but they shouldn't have chosen a genre their game designers have no clue about, it's never good to reinvent the wheel when TLOU came out recently and they could've adopted a set of controls that work with both single player and multiplayer, to toss side work by others was simply hubris.

People kept referring to them as "talented", outside of programming I'm not sure if that even holds true.

The controls, aiming, weapon feedback, gunplay, story, characters etc are all decent to good in The Order, so I completely disagree with you there. Pacing, and to add one more, encounter design, I'd agree with.
 
That seems to be the case and I understand that. But what I am saying is, The Order didn't do so well. And yet they have massive funding somehow to become a publisher? This is a big thing, and a huge success. Isn't it? lol It just doesn't add up. Weird
They found investors. The funding is definitely not coming all from themselves lol
 
The controls, aiming, weapon feedback, gunplay, story, characters etc are all decent to good in The Order, so I completely disagree with you there. Pacing, and to add one more, encounter design, I'd agree with.

I haven't played the game, just watche d someone play it, but I thought it needed better enemy types even. Shooting rebell humans (who are basically the good guys? and just poor opressed working class people) is lame in a universe with... vampires, werewolves, blackmagic, the grail...
 

Mifec

Member
The controls, aiming, weapon feedback, gunplay, story, characters etc are all decent to good in The Order, so I completely disagree with you there. Pacing, and to add one more, encounter design, I'd agree with.

no no no The Last of Us has decent to good writing, The Order does not. It's as cliche and predictable as it gets.
 

nib95

Banned
I haven't played the game, just watche d someone play it, but I thought it needed better enemy types even. Shooting rebell humans (who are basically the good guys? and just poor opressed working class people) is lame in a universe with... vampires, werewolves, blackmagic, the grail...

I agree. The potential of the other enemy types was completely wasted. The thing is, the shoot outs are fun, there just aren't nearly enough of them, and the ones there are, are often too simplistic in design. They needed to have gameplay segments that were set up like the initial reveal trailer.
 
If those were the kind of games coming out of RaD making AAA games, I'm not exactly heartbroken they're trying something new. Hopefully less QuickTime events and extremely detailed rooms that serve no real purpose.
 
No big loss really.

The Order was a shit game.

Pleasing on the eye? Yeah.
Fun to play with memories made? No.

Opens the question now though that since Sony has lost a first party studio, will they be looking to fill in that gap and if so, whom?
 
Perhaps the studio is ramping up and is still contracted to Sony for more The Order. They've got the engine and tons of art in place already..

Looking forward to seeing what's next for the studio. Also, are preliminary Nintendo NX dev kits already out in the wild or is this a new console from Amazon or perhaps Samsung or Apple.

I doubt that's it - if they're moving to self-publishing and they already have two new in-house IPs in development then it sounds like a complete turnaround in the way the studio does business and they probably don't have any more contracts with Sony.
 

sora87

Member
Maybe with their next project they'll actually remember to make a game?

No big loss really.

The Order was a shit game.

Pleasing on the eye? Yeah.
Fun to play with memories made? No.

Opens the question now though that since Sony has lost a first party studio, will they be looking to fill in that gap and if so, whom?

They were never first party I believe.
 

nib95

Banned
no no no The Last of Us has decent to good writing, The Order does not. It's as cliche and predictable as it gets.

Lol, no, the Last of Us has exceptional writing, especially as far games are concerned. It is the pinnacle of the genre and medium, so to compare The Order to that as the defecto barometer seems completely unfair (even though that's what many did). I'm looking to other TPS and FPS like Gears, Army of Two, Resident Evil, Killzone, Call of Duty etc, and actually The Order holds up very well.
 
Lol, no, the Last of Us has exceptional writing, especially as far games are concerned. It is the pinnacle of the genre and medium, so to compare The Order to that as the defecto barometer seems completely unfair (even though that's what many did). I'm looking to other TPS and FPS like Gears, Army of Two, Resident Evil, Killzone, Call of Duty etc, and actually The Order holds up very well.

I agree with you, but The Order is vaguely comparable to TLoU because it has similar filmic aspirations. It's just that the pacing, characters, amount of content and level design in TLoU is far superior.
 

KC Denton

Member
Lol, no, the Last of Us has exceptional writing, especially as far games are concerned. It is the pinnacle of the genre and medium, so to compare The Order to that as the defecto barometer seems completely unfair (even though that's what many did). I'm looking to other TPS and FPS like Gears, Army of Two, Resident Evil, Killzone, Call of Duty etc, and actually The Order holds up very well.
Here's something I don't understand: When people criticize the game for being a poor shooter, having poor encounter design, or taking away control from the player too often, proponents of The Order say that it should not be criticised for those flaws and that it should be considered a story focused experience like a David Cage or a Telltale game. However, when other people criticize the story for being poor and incomplete, suddenly the defense focuses on how much stronger The Order's story is in comparison to other shooters.

Call me crazy, but it feels like there is a ton of goalpost shifting in regards to criticism of this game. Either it is being unfairly compared to shooters when it is aspiring to be a story focused experience, or it is being unfairly compared to story focused experiences when it should be compared to shooters.
 

Rembrandt

Banned
Lol, no, the Last of Us has exceptional writing, especially as far games are concerned. It is the pinnacle of the genre and medium, so to compare The Order to that as the defecto barometer seems completely unfair (even though that's what many did). I'm looking to other TPS and FPS like Gears, Army of Two, Resident Evil, Killzone, Call of Duty etc, and actually The Order holds up very well.

None of those games ever put a huge focus on the story, though. Maybe RE, but not in a way that they wanted to be looked at as an example of great storytelling. If you have your developers coming out to basically say that story is the first priority, you're setting yourself up to be compared to the pinnacles of gameplay storytelling and TLoU is probably the closest thing to compare it to. Both TPS, both had a focus on story, but TLoU literally did everything better because ND didn't bemoan the fact that they're making a video game and not a movie.
 

Felsparrow

Neo Member
I don't think TO was bad, instead it was just mediocre in a way that contrasted too obviouslywith its high production visuals. Combine that with being positioned as a flagship title for PS4 owners in the new console wars.

Putting out the game as is shows they can get the work done, and can and will attract investors. However, the actual sales and critical review of the game compared to its budget will allow any investors to have much more control.

Honestly, it's the same situation as Guerrilla Games, but without being a first party.

Get someone in charge that knows to focus on gameplay first, followed by a working story over glamour shots. They'll be fine and should get enough funding for one more game at the very least.

Once they do, so long as they learn from the mistakes of TO1886, then they should make the transition into a successful AAA studio.
 
id expect sony to be more patient and give them a second chance with another game.

id also hope so..

at least we are gonna see another game from them regardless.
 

wolfhowwl

Banned
Lol, no, the Last of Us has exceptional writing, especially as far games are concerned. It is the pinnacle of the genre and medium, so to compare The Order to that as the defecto barometer seems completely unfair (even though that's what many did). I'm looking to other TPS and FPS like Gears, Army of Two, Resident Evil, Killzone, Call of Duty etc, and actually The Order holds up very well.

Yeah, Call of Duty.

Black Ops 2 actually develops its villain, has closure to its story, and has a narrative that takes advantage of the medium with some reactivity instead of just forcefeeding the player endless bloated cutscenes.
 
The controls, aiming, weapon feedback, gunplay, story, characters etc are all decent to good in The Order, so I completely disagree with you there. Pacing, and to add one more, encounter design, I'd agree with.

I usually agree with a lot of what you post but not in this case.

How do you adjust your aim while switching shoulders when you have to take your right thumb off the stick up use the touchpad? You can't.

How do you stay in cover if you want to go around a corner? You can't.

Even Uncharted 1 allowed for sticking to cover around a corner via up + circle, and that was EIGHT YEARS AGO.

Want to stealth kill? Oops sorry it's not a stealth level.

You can't do tons of stuff without there being a button prompt.

Those ain't decent controls, those are clunky controls.


There are so many things that were just badly designed and thrown together it's not even funny, it's like the folks at RAD didn't know where to start.

You're basically judging the game using Dark Void standards here. Yes TLOU is awesome but standards set are standards set, you can't go well you can't compare anything to a goty because reasons, millions of people have experienced what a great game controls like and what it's like to have great controls that lets you perform a variety of actions smoothly, you can't just lower standards because now we have a mediocre game on our hands. Sure RAD isn't ND, but a mediocre game is a mediocre game.

The story is inconsistent and never had much meat in it and they never truly flesh out any of the characters or any of the subplots. The background had potential but they never did anything with it and should never be given credit for potential that was never fulfilled. You can't live on promises like that especially when you know a sequel isn't going to get made.

There's no cheese in the burger, tomato and onions are missing, the beef patty has been replaced by spam right out of the tin, and there ain't no alcohol in that beer.

It sure ain't a decent meal.

The graphics sure were gorgeous though.
 

charsace

Member
Lol, no, the Last of Us has exceptional writing, especially as far games are concerned. It is the pinnacle of the genre and medium, so to compare The Order to that as the defecto barometer seems completely unfair (even though that's what many did). I'm looking to other TPS and FPS like Gears, Army of Two, Resident Evil, Killzone, Call of Duty etc, and actually The Order holds up very well.

Maybe it holds up well to every killzone except 2 and Army of Two. The order for sure doesn't touch Gears, Call of Duty, and Resident Evil. The game play is boring and the only worthwhile thing is the hit reactions produced by the beautiful graphics. If the game had decent game play it would have easily been and 80 game. Uncharted 1 and FF13 got great reviews at the time just because of the graphics and decent game play.
 

Kolx

Member
Why would they? They already lost out on Sunset Overdrive because of their IP ownership policy, now it appears they've lost out on Ready At Dawn's next IP.
But hey, if that's their policy and it's still working for them, then more power to them. Some developers do like it when the publisher owns and handles the IP (Platinum being the best example of this). But it seems more often then not, devs want to control the IP they've poured hours of hard work into, can you blame them?

They can always relocate this funds to another developer and IP so this's really not an issue. This's a right for any company to make sure that their funds never go to a franchise they would not have a hand on it in the future if it becomes something big and they funded it from the beginning.
 

2thepoint

Junior Member
Thread bump worthy news?

Ready at Dawn are hiring for a bunch of different positions and in the job description for many, it states that they are in pre production on a new AAA action console title, in addition to their game with Oculus.

It's also mentioned that it is a brand new IP, so is The Order: 1886 vaporized as a franchise?

Wonder could it be multiplatform, or have they struck a deal with Sony again?
 
Thread bump worthy news?

Ready at Dawn are hiring for a bunch of different positions and in the job description for many, it states that they are in pre production on a new AAA action console title, in addition to their game with Oculus.

It's also mentioned that it is a brand new IP, so is The Order: 1886 vaporized as a franchise?

I hope Sony can salvage The Order by making a follow-up by another team- or hell, give RAD another chance. I feel like there's enough potential for improvement/expansion... but has the well been poisoned too much?
 

2thepoint

Junior Member
I hope Sony can salvage The Order by making a follow-up by another team- or hell, give RAD another chance. I feel like there's enough potential for improvement/expansion... but has the well been poisoned too much?

Well, putting everything aside, the engine they created is capable of spectacular visuals.

Me personally, I'd love to see a sequel.

It seems they have decided to try again with a new IP.
 

TronLight

Everybody is Mikkelsexual
no no no The Last of Us has decent to good writing, The Order does not. It's as cliche and predictable as it gets.

The Last of Us it's as predictable and cliche as it gets too, though.
But it's also a better game from what I've seen (haven't played The Order yet, but as far as gameplay goes it doesn't look like something to write home about).
 

element

Member
‘transmedia IP’
E2USislQIlsfm.gif
 

Maxey

Member
I wonder if they'll overcompensate for their next game and make it mostly gameplay with very little narrative and cutscenes.
 

Lingitiz

Member
I hope Sony can salvage The Order by making a follow-up by another team- or hell, give RAD another chance. I feel like there's enough potential for improvement/expansion... but has the well been poisoned too much?
They are probably better off not investing in that brand ever again. I'd rather they use that money towards other new IP or invest more money into their other external partners like Super massive and the like.
 

Robot Pants

Member
That's The Order as a franchise killed dead in its tracks then.
Sony could give it to another dev but i doubt I would want it. Ready at Dawn definitely deserved a second chance to expand on what they did with The Order 1. It's a real shame they won't get to. It could have been great franchise.
 
This sucks

During a time when so many games are sprawling and time consuming wastes of collecting trinkets, climbing towers and skinning animals, the Order was refreshing in its brevity and simplicity.

The story wasn't mind-blowing but it was easy to follow, the characters were great and the backdrop unique.

The shooting was actually pretty great and outside of the terrible
werewolf
sections the enemies were fun to fight.

Paid 60$ for the game and platinum'd it in 2 playthroughs and don't regret it one bit

It's obvious RAD are very talented and a lot of effort was poured into making the world of the order

I enjoyed it for the same reason I loved both heavy rain and beyond two souls. Sometimes it's nice to have a quick cinematic AAA experience. Shame gamers are so fickle, I would have loved an Order 1887.

I look forward to a retrospective in the future with members of RAD about the behind the scenes of this game
 

Rembrandt

Banned
This sucks

During a time when so many games are sprawling and time consuming wastes of collecting trinkets, climbing towers and skinning animals, the Order was refreshing in its brevity and simplicity.

The story wasn't mind-blowing but it was easy to follow, the characters were great and the backdrop unique.

The shooting was actually pretty great and outside of the terrible
werewolf
sections the enemies were fun to fight.

Paid 60$ for the game and platinum'd it in 2 playthroughs and don't regret it one bit

It's obvious RAD are very talented and a lot of effort was poured into making the world of the order

I enjoyed it for the same reason I loved both heavy rain and beyond two souls. Sometimes it's nice to have a quick cinematic AAA experience. Shame gamers are so fickle, I would have loved an Order 1887.

I look forward to a retrospective in the future with members of RAD about the behind the scenes of this game

They didn't advertise it like those titles, though. Those threads were fun.
 

Maxey

Member
This sucks

During a time when so many games are sprawling and time consuming wastes of collecting trinkets, climbing towers and skinning animals, the Order was refreshing in its brevity and simplicity.

The story wasn't mind-blowing but it was easy to follow, the characters were great and the backdrop unique.

The shooting was actually pretty great and outside of the terrible
werewolf
sections the enemies were fun to fight.

Paid 60$ for the game and platinum'd it in 2 playthroughs and don't regret it one bit

It's obvious RAD are very talented and a lot of effort was poured into making the world of the order

I enjoyed it for the same reason I loved both heavy rain and beyond two souls. Sometimes it's nice to have a quick cinematic AAA experience. Shame gamers are so fickle, I would have loved an Order 1887.

I look forward to a retrospective in the future with members of RAD about the behind the scenes of this game

Nah, the game simply didn't strike a good balance between gameplay and cutscenes. You'd think that a game dev who made pretty good spin-offs of God of War, they'd know how to strike that good balance but no.
 

Jobbs

Banned
so we're never going to find out what happened after
gunshot fade to black?
we'll never find out what became of
dracula
? oh nooooo
 
That's The Order as a franchise killed dead in its tracks then.
It was a still birth. It never had the chance to live, it was too garbage and horrible.

It's not really surprising that nobody wants to publish these guys. At least they knew better than to attempt crowdfunding.

I hope Sony can salvage The Order by making a follow-up by another team- or hell, give RAD another chance. I feel like there's enough potential for improvement/expansion... but has the well been poisoned too much?
I think giving it to another developer could work. It needs to be revamped as a super schlocky monster mash shooter.
 
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