Final Word - The Order: 1886 Interview

With the launch of The Order: 1886 just around the corner we talked with Ready at Dawn co-founder Andrea Pessino, and picked his brains regarding the upcoming PS4-exclusive third-person shooter, The Order: 1886.

Gamereactor: You're the Chief Technical Officer at Ready at Dawn. For our readers, can you tell us what that job entails?

AP: Uh, well. Ru (Weerasuriya, Ready at Dawn's Creative Director) and I started the company in 2003 or so. The way it works is we run the company together. He oversees all of the creative side and I oversee the all of technical side. That's pretty much what my job is. I still work on a bunch of interesting R&D projects that we do. You know crazy stuff, like the physics engine for The Order which we worked on for three years or something like that. So...that's about it.

This is your studio's first major IP. I heard Ru mention in a previous interview that the decision to go ahead with The Order was influenced by the success of Uncharted 2: Among Thieves. Can you elaborate on that?

AP: Yeah well... Everything that Naughty Dog has done really has been an inspiration for us. From day one. You know they're our friends, were very close with them. And Jason and Andy (Jason Rubin and Andy Gavin) were the ones that, when we started the company, recommended that we do a game based on the Jack and Daxter franchise. So we've always had a relationship and we're interested in the same type of experiments. Blending high technology and beautiful art, and narrative and gameplay. Mixing it all together.

So Uncharted 2 was a big influence. They showed us once again what CAN be done with games, you know? And sure, it seems infinite. There's always something new that you can do with games. So yeah, Uncharted 2 was definitely a part of a series of inspirations that contributed to the creation of The Order, for sure.

The game looks amazing, and you've talked a lot about all the technical achievements you've accomplished in The Order. Is there any particular detail you're especially proud of?

AP: Oh, I'm proud of the whole thing. But there are many different areas of technology and art that we experimented with that were...you know, you try ten things and maybe you get two right. But those two can be really something, you know? There are many things that we do in terms of rendering and materials and shading and simulation that were pretty huge research projects that required a couple of years of just banging your head against a wall and just going "ok, still not good enough, still not good enough". And again, it's a luxury to be able to do this kind of pure research and go "we're going to figure something out and we're going to make it work".

Without being, you know, hyperbolic I can say that there are some things that we do that just a few years ago probably wouldn't have been possible to make even in a pre-rendered setting. Like in an animated movie or something like that. And we do it in real time on a little console! It's amazing. It still blows my mind some of the things that we're actually able to do now. The type of cloth we do for example, I can tell you, most even pre-rendered solutions wouldn't be able to do the stuff that we do in real time. It was a lot of work and a lot of risk and some of it pays off, some of it doesn't. In this case I really believe that the dynamics, things that move...if you look at a shot of Galahad just standing there and there's wind... the planes are moving, the flags are swinging...Everything shares the same atmosphere. All of these volumetric winds are actually physically simulated. Everything is moving consistently and coherently. And everything responds volumetrically. It's not just a bunch of particles being rendered. There is real surface to air. Volume, air friction, there is all kinds of interesting stuff going on that, again, would have been impossible to even consider just a few years ago.

Again, to the player...you might not even have a clue why it looks better. You see the character looking over a balcony and you see the cloth and all these things and the air moving and you go "that was good, but I don't really know why". But whenever the motion is physically correct, it really adds an extra dimension that your brain is trained to register as real. As realistic. Much more so then when it's just an approximation. A lot of these processes have been particularly challenging but they're also really rewarding to develop.

You began working on The Order in 2010, and the graphics in the final game are very much next-gen, state-of-the-art technology. How do you plan for that during the development of the game? To make a game that is going to look the best it possibly can - 5 years from now?

AP: It's uh...I almost want to say innocence (laughs). It's a bit of immaturity, really. When we started we didn't have anything. We just went to the graphics department and went: "You guys do, whatever you think you can do to make it look absolutely the best you can. And then we'll figure out how to make it work." That's really the way it is. I mean I wish I could come up with some explanation that is more sophisticated but there isn't. You have to be arrogant enough that you just go - "Do it!" And that's what we did. We started out with a blank sheet of paper and said, "Go!" Go with physically-based lighting. Go with these crazy materials, with 3D scanning, with all these other approaches. And then we trusted that we were also kept in the loop with Sony. Because you know the development of the PS4 was... fantastic. It's the first time in my life that I've been a part of something like that. Sony really involves the developers from day one and it was a continuing cycle of feedback that allowed us to really understand the decisions that were being made. I really think that the PS4 is that much of a better platform because of that process. It allowed those who are actually developing for the platform to have their say from the beginning. Or at the very least to be heard. So... that back and forth allowed us to fine-tune the target as things were changing. And after that it's really just a lot of work. A lot of refining and not stopping until you feel that you delivered on another level of fidelity.

Aside from the purely graphical and technical parts, now that you have the final game in front of you, how much would you say it has changed from the original concept during these five years of development?

AP: That's a complicated question to answer...

I guess what I'm asking is, have you had to kill any darlings, or have you added a lot at the last minute?

AP: Of course, you always have to kill a lot of darlings. Especially through something like this because...you know it's kind of like you build this humongous foundation and then you build a little house on top of it. That house could support so much more. But the foundation needs to be in place. So I really feel we're just scratching the surface of everything that we've been able to create in terms of technology and tools and gameplay concepts. So yeah, in the end it's a very finite amount of time, and it's a long time as it is. So lots of darlings were killed. But in the end the core of the original vision is all there and I think it's quite a satisfying and engaging game to play but you know, we always want to do more... it's never... If it were up to us it would be in development for fifteen years, just adding stuff. You're never satisfied. Especially the artists and those groups of guys are just, up to the last second going, "No, no...this is not good enough."

So it's hard. At some point you have to say: "Ok guys. Time to package it up."

You talked a lot of all the research you did into the time period of the setting of the game. You went to London and took all these reference photos and looked at all these old Victorian-era machines. And you yourself have said that all the objects in the game are designed to look like stuff that could have been there, technologically, even if they weren't. You've also included some real historical persons in the game. In the game as a whole, how much of real historical and political themes from the Victorian era are there?

AP: It's quite a bit. It was one of the main reasons for choosing that time period for the game. It's so rich, there's so many things. It probably was the time when humanity changed the most that it has in the shortest period of time. It was just...incredible. So building the lore and myth of the game upon that was really just a fantastic starting point. Like I said, Ru is an absolute history buff. We both love games and anything else that takes you to a different place, a different world, and at the same time takes you back and shows you little bits and pieces of history. One example is the United India Company; they're a big part of this game. There are all kinds of things that are sprinkled all around for those who want to dig deeper and appreciate all those things. You can pick up all the newspapers in the game and read stuff that's going on and there are lots of little collectibles that you can use to go even deeper into the story. There are many other things that I can't spoil right now but when you play, you'll see.

You're also a trained musician. You helped with the score of Diablo II, just to take one example. Can you tell us anything about the process of developing the music and score for The Order?

AP: I can talk about that for a week! (laughs) It was a really important thing for us. Once again we had this amazing amount of support from Sony. Really, on the creative side they're just amazing. They really trust us to come up with solutions, ideas and artistic approaches that...I don't know...I can't imagine many publishers who would take these kinds of risks. But we really wanted for the music to have the same level of impact that the visuals were having. Personally, ever since I heard the score that Jason Graves did for Dead Space... I was amazed. That a game could have a score with such complexity and depth. A score that was so effective. So from the beginning Jason was our number one candidate. He worked on the very first prototype of the game and wrote the first music for it. Then he and Austin Wintory (Journey, The Banner Saga), who was another of my game idols... I noticed that these guys are not, you know, film composers who write a couple of themes for games and then... you know, whatever. These guys are game composers, they understand the medium very well and... they do it for the games.

The two of them together spent months coming up with the sound. And it had to be something... like I said something of a signature. That was what we wanted really. And once again, thanks to the resources we were given, they were able to do so. They came up with this approach to the score where the instrumentation is absolutely unique. There are all violas, cellos and basses. There are no violins. There's no brass. There are only the lowest of the woodwinds. Three contrabassoons and three contra bass clarinets. And on top of that is a choir of all men. So no females, no sopranos, no altos. Not even any tenors. There's just baritones, low baritones, bases and deep bases. And the sound is just... something else. It's really down, rowdy and low and incredibly disturbing. It's like an interlude. You hear it and you know it's the sound of The Order. On top of that, we were able to record everything live with the finest musicians in the world at Abbey Road over multiple sessions.

We created this epic, gorgeous score that is, in my opinion, a real milestone in the history of music for games. Of course I guess I am a little biased (laughs) but as a musician, still today, I almost cannot listen to it. It is so amazing. Every moment of it. From the main themes to all of the underscores it's... an absolute masterpiece. Even if you don't want to play the game I highly recommend that anybody just get that original soundtrack and give it a listen. We released a couple of tracks and people's responses were amazing. Even those that normally don't appreciate music in that way... immediately were blown away by how emotional and unique and effective the soundtrack is.

Alright, last question. And I understand that maybe you can't talk about this right now: But what are the plans for the future for this IP?

AP: It's too early to tell. It would be wonderful. But we haven't announced anything else so...we shall see.

Stay tuned for our review of The Order: 1886 later this week. It's set to launch on PlayStation 4 on February 20.