Sony Shows The Order: 1886 During a Brief Twitch Stream

In a seemingly random turn of events, Sony unveiled a small gameplay video of The Order: 1886.
The unveiling happened after Sony’s European blog teased an announcement during a livestream. This stream simply opened with someone playing chapter III of The Order for a few minutes. Nothing else was revealed during the livestream, but I did catch a glimpse of a couple weapons in action. The first weapon was a handheld chain gun that caused all kinds of damage, and the second gun was one that shot bolts of electricity at the enemies. Both of these fit well into The Order’s theme of alternate history and unique weapons.
The brief gameplay demo also showed the cover mechanics and squad commands that will be heavily used throughout The Order’s campaign. They seemed to be the standard mechanics of a third person shooter, so the gameplay should be solid.
One thing I did notice about this gameplay demo is that The Order is absolutely gorgeous. The city in which the mission took place was bleak and grey, but it still stood out in a way that older games couldn’t.
Probably the most interesting part of the brief demo was something that happened during a cutscene. One character catches a bullet with the side of his neck–including some beautiful blood splatter–and he simply drinks something from a vial, which heals his neck instantly. The focus on this vial most likely means that The Order will include a different version of health management besides regenerating health or random packs.
While it was nice seeing a demo of The Order: 1886, I don’t particularly understand the purpose of the tease and the livestream. Why would Sony try to tease a big event before quickly showing footage of a game that doesn’t have a concrete release date? My only guess is that Sony is responding to Microsoft’s pre-E3 reveals of Halo 5 and the Kinect-less Xbox One. Hopefully, Sony will show more than three minutes of footage during E3.