“On the art side, that’s also something we keep in mind when we’re designing sets, especially in the cities,” Phail-Liff says. “It’s like capturing that layer of history. It’s not like you go in and build Victorian London by using all Victorian buildings, you have that layer of the medieval and Tudor buildings. That sense of this hodgepodge of different architectural eras and styles mixed together, it’s what makes it look like a real believable city. That was something that was really, really helpful to see when we were on location.”
The team’s trip to London was important for capturing the vibe and structures of the city, but the developer turned to professional film costumers to get the period clothing right.
“We rented out space at a costume warehouse there that does period costumes for films, so we could pull everything from an actual historic constable outfit from Victorian times,” says Phail-Liff. “We had models that we’d dress up and basically do fashion photo-shoots from every single detail of the costume, so we got a wide range of classes and professions from actual period costumes. Beyond that reference gathering, there was a huge amount of research time invested in understanding the cuts and style of a dress used in the era across classes, and sourcing as many period-accurate textiles as we can, which we then scan and actually use to surface the characters. We’re hoping that, when the player experiences the game, it feels like everything is really believable and real and it doesn’t feel like a game costume – it really feels like a period film costume.”
Garret Foster, tech director on The Order: 1886, says, “All those pieces of technology for the most part – especially with weaponry and things – were there in some capacity. You can find this guy in this part of the world invented this piece and this guy in [another] part of the world invented this piece. Someone could have conceivably [combined] the existing technology. That’s what a lot of the weapons are based on: ‘Well there was this guy in Eastern Europe that invented this and this in guy Britain invented this piece.’ They could have conceivably have met each [combined] those pieces together.”
