A great tragedy struck the world. Lands were shattered, destroying all of mankind’s greatest creations, wiping out all life with them. A few survivors remained, struggling to survive. Water and food became scarce, forcing these survivors to fight. Three factions rose from the ashes of the old world: The valorous Knights, the brutal Vikings and the honorable Samurai. These factions warred against each other a thousand years, the reason they fought long forgotten. Now, after all these years, peace seems to draw ever closer, but is still only a dream. Which faction will you join? And fight For Honor!
Of Swords and Men
For Honor is Ubisoft’s attempt at a third person realistic swordplay hack ‘n slash game, with some MOBA elements thrown into the mix. There are not a lot of games in this genre, but Mount & Blade and Chivalry are two titles that come to mind. I very much enjoyed these games, even though in both of those games, the swordplay felt a bit clunky. For Honor does things a bit differently, you can attack and defend in three directions: left, right and up. You have two different attacks, a light and heavy attack. An attack can be blocked by moving your cursor in the direction the attack is coming from. The combat is very easy to learn, but there are a few things to pick up before you can call yourself a master.
For Honor has twelve available heroes, four for each faction. Each of these heroes have a unique moveset and unique abilities. Learning each of them will take some time, but is most certainly worth your time. This gives the game a bit of a learning curve, randomly flailing your weapon at the enemy might work in the tutorial, but even against the AI, you will not achieve much. Starting with the story mode is highly recommended, as it is not only surprisingly entertaining, it also is a tutorial, teaching you the basics and giving you a first taste of each hero. As a game which main focus is multiplayer, the story mode is packed full of lore and more fleshed out than I first expected.
The Great (Faction) War
As I’ve said, For Honor is mainly focused on multiplayer. As you first boot up the game, you need to choose between the three factions. The faction you choose, however, does not limit you to the four heroes of that faction, you can still play as a samurai if you choose to represent the Vikings. Only the first hero of each faction is available to you when you first start multiplayer. The other heroes need to be unlocked with in-game currency that can be earned by playing matches, completing daily and weekly quests, or, of course, via micro transactions.
Micro transactions in a full-priced game is something that cannot be allowed, even if you can unlock almost everything in the game by just playing the game. Every hero has gear that can be equipped to change some stats around to fit your playstyle, but those items can be upgraded, which also costs some currency. So it is either grinding for days or pay a price to skip all of that, which is just plain wrong.
If you open the multiplayer mode, you will join the great Faction War. The world is divided in three parts, each faction controls a portion of the map, your job is to conquer as much land as possible before the season runs out. Each season lasts for ten weeks, and is divided in five rounds (two weeks) and territory control is updated every six hours. You fight in the war by completing any multiplayer match, which reward you with War Assets. These War Assets can be deployed to any front on the map where your faction is fighting. After the season ends you will get better gear, depending on how you have played. The multiplayer has five of games modes: Dominion, Elimination, Skirmish, Duel and Brawl. The mode I enjoyed the most is Duel, a 1v1 deathmatch. A Duel in For Honor really gets the adrenaline pumping.
For Honor is an amazing game when it comes to the gameplay and the atmosphere it is trying to create. The game looks and sounds amazing, the animations are fantastic. However, the game really falls short on performance. The network uses a peer-to-peer connection, causing frequent disconnects, or even failing to connect in the first place. Finding a game can take a while, finishing a game even more. A season pass that costs almost as much as the game itself, and micro transactions are two things that also really grinds my gear. But still, if the network problems hopefully get fixed someday and the grind does not burn out the game, For Honor is definitely worth a look. If you wait for a year, and buy a complete edition of the game, you will most certainly have your money’s worth.
3,5/5
Reviewed for PC
