Ubisoft’s latest title “For Honor” is a game that, going into, I expected to hate. Something about the general premise of the game just did not really stand out to me as well as the base fact that, as a rule, I typically REALLY hate online only game.
It was to my surprise then that not only does For Honor contain a story driven campaign mode but it even actively promotes that you spend time fighting AI opponents with the games mission system, not only this but For Honor is one of the best fighting games I have played in a very long time.
Multiplayer & Gameplay
For Honor is one of those games that is really easy to pick up and play but has layers of depth to it allowing for a perfect storm of “easy to play – difficult to master” gameplay styles.
As I stated above, it is no secret that I rarely bother playing games online after playing enough to review something (Mostly because I find it impossible to find time to play with others in adult life) but something clicked with me in For Honor and for the first time in AGES – I have found that I am happy to pick up For Honor when I have a spare hour and just play through the varying multiplayer modes on my own.
There is enough in the different multiplayer modes of For Honor that keeps it fresh and exciting no matter how long the gaming session, from a “Capture The Zone” style mode where you and your team lead vast armies in order to capture the different zones right up to a standard elimination mode where you are all pitted in 1v1 style battles with a twist – if you are able to dispatch of your opponent quick enough you can get through the level to assist other team members in taking down opponents. Some of the the best plays I have ever witnessed came within this game mode where I watched as a one man army dispatched an entire team of fighters and unlike so many multiplayer modes this actually FEELS powerful and impressive.
At the start of For Honor you are tasked with picking a faction, the reason behind this is not immediately apparent to players but the idea of this is in order to wage war on certain areas of the map and depending on how well you do in For Honor’s multiplayer modes, you are able to dispatch more soldiers to war torn areas in order to help your faction. As of writing, I don’t know the benefits of this but I plan to play a lot more For Honor to find out.
One worry that is apparent in For Honor’s multiplayer mode is the Peer to Peer multiplayer service opted in instead of a standard server fare – as of writing I have not experienced any of the concerns which people are worried about (bar a few resynchronisations with play disconnects) thought I would advise that if you are going to play For Honor – do it as soon as possible.
Campaign
Despite what one may assume with For Honor, the campaign mode actually has a fairly engrossing story that had me hooked. Whilst it’s a pretty basic storyline -a tale of betrayal is something that will always get me going and keep me interested to the very end. One notable mechanic I liked in the campaign mode was shifting through the different types of character – for example you would ransack a Viking Village at the end of the Knights campaign only to play as the Vikings in order to see the aftermath first hand in the next mission.
I liked the use of the varying types of character types throughout the campaign mode as it helped me to get a real feel for my play style within For Honor before I spent steel (For Honor’s in game currency) on unlocking character types which I may not enjoy playing as – though Steel is not difficult to come by if you follow the tutorials and carry out a few basic online missions (I think that I did one days worth of missions and all the tutorials and I was able to unlock everyone).
One of the best reasons to play the campaign mode in For Honor is the ability to learn the different heroes playstyles before going into the multiplayer mode – this is something that I honestly cannot shout about enough which NEEDS to happen if you do not want to get butchered online (Alongside the advanced tutorials to learn about parrying etc).
Appearance
There is no beating around the bush with this one – For Honor is a beautiful looking game. Whilst it is true that the Armies are pretty generic looking – I personally feel that this was a necessary evil for a game with so many moving parts (IE fuck off great armies doing battle in a multiplayer warzone whilst players also wage war on each other as the games Heroes)
The different player heroes look beautiful as well and the addition of varying different armor sets allows for a rich, deep customisation system (which was another great surprise) allowing you to customise your favourite character based on how they look as well as skill sets & perks, think of a similar system to Call Of Duty but you loot battlefields at the end of each battle (this is done automatically so there is no boring manual looting) to have varying different pieces of loot available to equip on your hero of choice.
Verdict
For Honor is an impressive fighting game with lots of moving parts that help to create an incredibly rich multiplayer fighting game which came to me as a huge surprise in that had me playing multiplayer way longer than I normally bother.