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Famous for pushing the boundaries of Sony's PSP platform, The Order: 1886 demonstrates what developer Ready at Dawn is truly capable of from a technological standpoint when working with more powerful, modern hardware. While interactivity, run-time and replayability have dominated the headlines this week, what shouldn't be forgotten is just how much of a technological leap the game represents. Indeed, by focusing on such a tight, focused experience, Ready at Dawn is given the freedom to push visual boundaries in new and exciting ways, without the issues faced by larger open world experiences. The Order: 1886 is based on an in-house tile-based forward renderer - or forward+ as it's often designated - designed from the ground up for PlayStation 4 with full multi-threading and physically-based rendering as key foundation points. It's a highly flexible renderer with easy to use support for multiple BRDFs (bidirectional reflectance distribution functions) allowing for a highly flexible materials pipeline. This approach allows developers to quickly create and place objects within the game world that look and behave realistically. Physically-based rendering has become increasingly popular in modern engines but there's still an art to its implementation - and it's here where Ready at Dawn has really delivered.
Clean image quality is a key factor in delivering a strong filmic look and The Order: 1886 turns in a solid performance here. One of the first controversies surrounding the game is its 2.40:1 aspect ratio which renders fewer pixels while maintaining 1:1 pixel mapping on native 1080p displays. With its accompanying, rather heavy post-processing pipeline, there are compelling arguments that this approach doesn't produce results substantially better than sub-native titles like Ryse at 900p but, in motion, finer details are visible and fewer subpixel artefacts interfere with the image. The image is predominately soft, but more subtle sharp details still manage to shine through, creating a nice contrast. It may not be to everyone's taste but The Order: 1886 features some of the best image quality you'll find on console at the moment.
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