The war has been raging on forever. Samurai, Vikings and Knights have been fighting each other for centuries. It all happened when the world came to an end but it has been decades since that event occurred. To be honest, I don’t know why we’re still fighting, I want it to end. How hard I want it to end, there seems to be a force preventing me from stopping. It’s not the war I chose but it’s the war I must survive. For honor, for glory, for victory!
These are my exact words I used to introduce you to the world of For Honor during the closed alpha. Now, months have passed and we just finished our time with the closed beta. Since the game is set for release in just a couple of weeks (Valentine’s Day), it’s worth seeing what Ubisoft improved to the game. A lot of gamers are afraid this competitive multiplayer game won’t be that good, but after spending enough time with the beta, there are already a lot of improvements compared to the closed alpha test.
It’s all about the combat
For Honor isn’t your standard third-person action game where you just need to push the buttons in order to win. If you want to survive on the online battlefields, you’ll need to master the controls. For Honor really feels authentic and fighting enemies is always challenging. Fighting one on one will demand skill and surviving a double attack will demand skill and luck. Before you can even enter the online battles, you’ll need to finish the tutorial first.
Just like in the closed alpha, the tutorial teaches you how to attack and block an enemy. It’s important to defend from left, right or above depending on where your enemy will strike (this is indicated by a red triangle seconds before the attack). Mirroring the moves of your enemies is very important while defending. Changing direction quickly is needed to land a successful light or heavy attack. Besides defending and attacking, you can also break the guard of your enemy, dodge his moves or throw him into the ground. A lot of things to keep into consideration and believe me, combat is extremely hard compared to other games. After defeating the leader of your faction, you’re all set to conquer the world.
Fight for your faction
Everything you achieve online is of importance for the faction you picked at the start of the game. As you already know, you can fight for the Knight, Samurai and Viking faction but this doesn’t mean you can’t play with a character from another faction. You can, for example, pledge your alliance to the Samurai faction while playing as a Viking during an online match. So why pick a faction? Well, because there’s an eternal war raging on. Ubisoft divided this war into different match types ranging from one VS one duels to giant battles where you need to control several points in order to win. Everything you do will give you more experience points and higher levels, the higher your level, the better your gear or unlockable character.
Besides gaining personal experience points, you’ll also be rewarded with awesome goodies when your faction is the best at the end of a season. Ubisoft already made it clear in the beta, they’ll support the game with thrilling seasons to compete in. Fighting for your faction goes way beyond pride alone since the best gear can only be unlocked if your faction controls most ground during a specific season. I’m sure a lot of gamers will absolutely adore this competitive approach.
Strong presentation
Another thing worth pointing out after this beta test, is that the game looks incredibly good. It came a far way since the closed alpha test and finally is looking like a finished product. The environments look great and you can really see the difference when the Knights are in control compared to when another faction is in control. It’s great to see that the team invested enough of their time into small but yet important details like these.
Besides that, the characters look amazing and each type of character really looks different from the other. The animations are spot on and the fighting happens very fluently. Of course, the past taught us to not always believe what a beta is showcasing but in the case of For Honor, let’s hope for the best. If the entire game, including the solo adventure, looks this good, we’re in for a treat!
Leaving a session isn’t cool!
The biggest downside during the beta wasn’t caused by bugs or technical glitches, it was caused by the other players. Like any competitive game, gamers don’t like to be on the losing end. This also means that a lot of players leave the session before it reaches its end, leaving the others in loading limbo or canceled matches. It’s a shame this happens and it seems like Ubisoft isn’t ready to penalty those players yet, which makes sense for now.
It’s hard to determine if the player lost connection due to a bad internet connection or he just left the match. But there must be some kind of system to prevent players from leaving. Based on what we saw in the beta, giving everybody experience points and new gear at the end of the match (even if you lost), isn’t enough to stop certain gamers from leaving. Want a great For Honor experience? Don’t leave the match, it’s not cool!
