While all the attention is directed towards The Division, Rainbow Six Siege and the upcoming Assassin’s Creed game, little has been given to Ubisoft Montreal’s newest project, “For Honor”. Sure there was some buzz when the game was announced at E3 but since then not a whimper. Last week, Ubisoft announced “For Honor” would be playable for the first time at PAX Prime. Knowing this, I just knew I had to make a b-line to Ubisoft’s booth in order to get my hands on the game. When PAX Prime’s doors opened up, I did just that.
There were only a limited amount of game stations set up on the show floor, so I definitely considered myself lucky to take part in the demo which featured a 4 versus 4 mode called “Dominion”. I was told “For Honor” will include a single player campaign and several multiplayer modes; however, for the purpose of PAX I played the one mode which was a zone based PVP mode. Think Call of Duty’s Domination but with a smorgasbord of AI controlled enemies intermingled with two teams of up to four players on each side. It is all about capturing the three objective points, accumulating points and holding on to them.
During the demo I played with the Knight class; however, I was told there will also be a Samurai and Viking class all with abilities unique to each class.
Before the game kicked off, I was greeted to a character selection and customization screen which didn’t feature a great deal of options but one can only safely assume Ubisoft Montreal will beef this area up when the games launches. Nevertheless, the stunning detail of all the characters armour and weaponry was proudly on display. It looked fantastic and certainly jaw dropping to me.
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“Sure, so far it was feeling more like Ryse 2.0 as opposed to a new IP from Ubisoft but that all changed once the carnage began.”
Soon after I was done with my character, I jumped into a tutorial. Here I went through some of the character movements, basic light and heavy attacks. Defence is also a critical component of the game, so a great deal of time was also spent demonstrating those controls. Right off the hop I could tell there is a significant amount of strategy involved. Sure, so far it was feeling more like Ryse 2.0 as opposed to a new IP from Ubisoft but that all changed once the carnage began.
After all my character was all trained up, we were ready for battle. Not really knowing where I should begin, I instantly fed myself to the wolves by sprinting to the middle of Dominion’s map where I was absolutely swarmed by an onslaught of enemy AI. The AI controlled enemies were nice confidence boosters as it didn’t take much to take them down. A couple of hacks and down they went. Where the real challenge comes in is when you are matched up against another player, or two. You don’t stand much of a chance against 2 human opponents, so I found out quickly teamwork is the name of the game.
While working as a team, capturing objectives and racking up points all sounds like basic multiplayer stuff, “For Honor” does feature several layers of strategy. For instance, I found myself much more successful on the battlefield when I would start out by taking down hordes of enemy AI. While doing so, I would chain moves together and the more enemies I killed the more stars appeared over my head. Leveling up these stars allows for special skills to unlock such as getting your enemy AI teammates to act more aggressively, or launching a long range catapult.
Given everyone playing the demo was new to the game, there wasn’t much going on in terms of communication or strategy. Everyone seemed to congregate towards the middle of map engaging in endless brutality. Where the game did truly shine was during some of those one on one battles where it would be you and another player engaged in what the developers called “The Art of Battle”.
Attempting to take down another player using well timed strikes and solid guarding techniques is the name of the game. You have to be smart with your moves and tactical at the same time. Also don’t forget to pay attention to your surroundings as anyone can walk up at any time to take you out. Yet it all comes to a satisfying end when you deliver that death strike. It was this one on one match-up that I really enjoyed in the game. During the demo I only witnessed one finisher which involved slicing the enemies head off but again I imagine Ubisoft will up the ante come launch day.
At the end of the day “For Honor” is without question on the right path. The immaculate attention to detail is stunning and the melee combat is highly enjoyable. It’s strategical, tactical and looks to top what Microsoft was able to do with “Ryse”. At this rate, that shouldn’t be a problem.
