The Order 1886 Taking ‘Financial Hit’ as PlayStation 4 Exclusive

Ready at Dawn’s The Order 1886 was one of the most exciting pieces of software to be featured at Sony’s E3 press event. The PlayStation 4-exclusive shooter, which is said to take place in “neo-Victorian London,” is being sold as a blockbuster with franchise potential, but its platform exclusivity will cost the studio a few extra dollars.

Speaking with Game Industry International, Ready at Dawn boss Ru Weerasuriya stated that while his company is taking a risk releasing The Order 1886 only on PS4, he knows it was the right move.

"We saw the initial talks about PS4 and what it was going to be and we've had a relationship with Sony for 10 years, so we felt it was the right time to not only move but to move to a single platform again where we could bring our expertise to something that could make us realize the game we wanted,” Weerasuriya said. “Once we knew that internally, we approached Sony and said this is what we have and here's where we want to go, and they listened to us and we had a great discussion about how big it was going to be, and it turned out to be bigger than expected.”

Ready at Dawn didn’t make this call based on all the financial benefits it would received. In actuality, the company will likely lose money without support for the Xbox One or PC.

"For us, the number one factor in making our decision was always creative. And to a fault over the last 10 years, we sometimes chose creative over a lot of other things,” he continued. “Yes, of course, there's an opportunity to make a dual-platform game and there are third-party publishers we can go to, and it's not something we'll ever dismiss, but for now since we've been so targeted towards working on a single platform it felt natural for us to make that decision regardless of the financial hit we would take.”

Sticking to a single platform before it’s even tested by the market is a big gamble, but we really won’t know how it all turns out until the developer’s game launches sometime next year.