Ready at Dawn, the development studio behind the now failed The Order: 1886, proposed a sequel to Sony, but the project was rejected, according to Andrea Pessino, one of the studio’s founders, in an interview with the MinnMax YouTube channel.
The publisher never gave a clear reason for its decision, but Pessino believes that better reviews would have greatly increased the chances of approval. In other words, the not-so-positive reviews were the main issue.
“We really thought that with The Order, we had set up such a unique and appealing baseline that people were going to forgive some of its shortcomings,” Pessino explained (thanks GameSpot). “It would have been an incredible sequel, I can tell you for a fact.”
Low Scores?
Despite The Order: 1886 having a Metacritic score of 63, Ready at Dawn still proposed a sequel. Pessino explained that, in reality, it was a good thing Sony rejected it because the budget would have been smaller, and the studio wouldn’t have had the strength to negotiate a better contract. However, he added that the team would have accepted the opportunity just to redeem The Order: 1886.
Pessino did not reveal any details about where the sequel would have taken place, since the intellectual property belongs to Sony and not Ready at Dawn. One of the issues during the development of The Order: 1886 was the pressure to release the game on time, which led to cut content, with interactive elements being turned into cutscenes. “We were desperate, you know, we had to ship,” he said. “We needed at least another year, but they didn’t give us that.”
The Importance of Reviews Over Sales
Pessino didn’t talk about how many copies The Order: 1886 sold, but he believes that in Sony’s eyes, the negative reviews were more important than the sales figures. Interestingly, internal reviews had given the game a score of around 70, while public reviews were harsher. According to Pessino, if the game had received a score around 70, there would have been a sequel. Most likely, had Ready at Dawn continued working with Sony, it wouldn’t have been acquired by Meta and wouldn’t have gone bankrupt, despite having produced some of the best VR titles.
