In a revealing interview with MinnMax, Andrea Pessino, co-founder of Ready at Dawn, disclosed that Sony declined a sequel to the PlayStation 4 game, The Order: 1886, due to its lukewarm critical reception. Launched in 2015, The Order: 1886 was an action-packed title set in a Victorian London teeming with werewolves. Despite boasting some of the most visually stunning graphics of its time, the game garnered middling reviews.
Pessino expressed unwavering enthusiasm for a potential sequel, stating it would have been "incredible" and that the team at Ready at Dawn was willing to commit fully to its development, primarily for the sake of the players. However, he acknowledged the limitations imposed by not owning the franchise rights, which restricted his ability to discuss the project in depth. "We pitched the sequel to Sony regardless of [the critical reception] and, in a way, it's better that they passed because if we thought we were going to be screwed before, man, with the sequel, we would have signed our life away," Pessino remarked.
The development of the original game was fraught with challenges, as Pessino described a strained relationship with Sony. The team had to make significant cuts to meet deadlines, ultimately releasing The Order: 1886 before it was fully ready. Sony's expectations for graphical fidelity, based on early pitches and reveals, were hard to meet at certain development milestones, leading to withheld payments when Ready at Dawn couldn't maintain those standards due to other priorities.
Despite these industry-standard practices, the relationship between Ready at Dawn and Sony became increasingly frustrating. Pessino admitted the team was prepared to accept even more challenging conditions to develop a sequel, driven by a desire to redeem the franchise. "We were going to do it just because we wanted to deliver it to the players but we would have been... Terrible budget, budget would be small, we would have been completely at the mercy of any decisions and things because we had no leverage whatsoever," he explained.
The original game concluded on a cliffhanger, leaving fans eager for a sequel. However, with Ready at Dawn's closure by its owner Meta in 2024, those hopes have been extinguished. In our review, IGN rated The Order: 1886 a 6/10, critiquing, "Though a stylish adventure, The Order: 1886 emphasizes its cinematic polish at the crippling cost of gameplay freedom."
