For Honor
All hacking, all the time
DEVELOPER UBISOFT MONTREAL PUBLISHER UBISOFT PRICE $ 60.95 AVAILABLE AT STEAM, UPLAY, RETAIL forhonor.ubisoft.com
You know that Simpsons joke, about nuts and gum, two great flavours together at last? For Honor is kind of like that; legitimately cool things smooshed together into a gloriously ahistorical whole. It kind of feels wrong to point out that the game is dead-set silly in its premise, but let’s face it – Vikings fighting Knights fighting Samurai in some weirdly post-apocalyptic fantasy world is kind of weird.
Thankfully, though, despite a truly dire singleplayer campaign, the basic mechanics of For Honor are amazingly slick, and the game itself is impressively deep. It’s more than just a hack-andslash beat-‘em-up – it’s much more like a proper fighting game, with deep combos and special moves, combined with a wonderful basic mechanic. The basic moves – one heavy attack, one light – are built around the need to defend from one of three directions: left, right, and above. And you can only attack from the direction you are defending against. Lock onto an enemy and you move with them, and you can see the direction they’re defending, and thus the direction their attacks will come from; match that direction, and you can block them, but they too will be blocking on that same angle. So, to get around your enemy, you need to be able to quickly cover an attack angle, switch to another, launch an attack, and either move your guard again, or back away.
And that’s before you start mastering the special moves and class-based combos. It’s surprisingly intuitive, and makes for some remarkably intense combat.
The game also offers a range of modes, from one-on-one duels to
fast becoming the kind of game where your team-mates will tear you a new one
four-on-four grudge fests over capture points that also feature waves of easily killable mooks. There may not be many maps at launch, but the combination of game modes, classes, and some very lethal environments means that each game you play always feels fresh and challenging. And there’s some really interesting tactical opportunities that the low player count really opens up. In my favourite mode, which places the two four-player teams into distinct match-ups spread all over the level, you’ve got a number of options even before you clash weapons. You can fake out your own opponent, and dash to help another team-mate in a brief, twoon-one clash, or you can hover around in the background, ready to revive fallen comrades. And the verticality of these maps, combined with various pushbacks and throws, means you really need to think about how you’re going to move around them.
Sadly, the game is far from perfect, especially on PC. For one thing – and this is not Ubisoft’s problem at all – the player count is relatively low, meaning that playing during off-peak times can make it hard to find a populated match.
And, when you do get into a match, connection issues can be amazingly lethal, and so far, I’ve only had one match without at least a few-second pause in the game while the connection dangles in the wind. This would be bad enough in a shooter, but in a game about close-in action, and split-second
timing, chances are you’re going to find yourself very dead when the game connections restores itself.
But more problematic is how poorly Ubisoft presents all the information in a game. The tutorials are criminally basic, and the guides to each class’s special moves and tricks are hidden behind layers of UI. Similarly, the gear system seems under-explained at best, not to mention prone to paying-to-win. This awkwardly matches up with another problem that is, again, not really Ubi’s fault. It’s fast becoming the kind of game where your team-mates will tear you a new one if you’re not operating at the same level as them; the game’s very competitive and it already has a community to match. I really like the game, but I’m not wedded to learning it back to front, and more than once I’ve copped flack for “not playing properly.” It’s not an issue with the game, per se, but it does detract from the overall experience. To get the most out of For Honor, you’re really going to need to get to grips with how awful it is at teaching you to play, and move beyond that.
For Honor will no doubt reward those who can look past these flaws. Its frenetic combat hides a deep system of special moves and counters, combined with some impressive lethal levels. And it looks amazing, even if I do have a small conniption every time I see a horned Viking helmet. It’s a bold move for Ubisoft, and we’ve no doubt that For Honor could make a big impact not only as a game, but also in eSports. Watch this medieval space.