It's time to grab your axes, polish your shield and practice your cries of battle. For Honor is finally out of beta and bringing the throes of war to us.
After a prolonged wait and many, many hours sunk into the Beta, the full release of For Honor, Ubisoft's latest release, was available for us to play. The medieval based game has been one of the most talked about released of 2017, mainly due to the unique premise that it brings. Complete hand to hand combat between Vikings, Samurai and Knights.
First off, we'll cover the story mode. The game very heavily recommended that not only do you work through the tutorials, but you also play the single player campaign first. We also suggest this. The controls are not the easiest to come to grips with, but they feel natural and will come to feel this way through progressing solo. It will teach the methods of fighting, how to combo, to parry and how to become not only a fighter, but a good fighter.
The story works its way through each of the three factions and lasts a good six hours. For a full release game, it feels a bit lackluster, however the enjoyment is still there. Story wise it's a bit flimsy, but it's hard to be upset as you hack and slash your way across the maps. The difficulty curves quite nicely and towards the end we found ourselves playing on the harder modes as it never felt like too much of a challenge. It felt quite nice to level up as we progressed and to have the rewards carry over to the multiplayer was a great touch and gave the sense of preparation for what was to come when we took to the online battlefield.
The multiplayer has various different game modes, so we'll run through them. 1v1. Standard duel, but it's not as easy as you'd think. With a best of five, it changes between every match, due to choice of character, class and even then everyone has a different playstyle. Judging and trying to read your opponent, outsmarting each and every move, it's great fun, which rewards you for playing correctly but punishes you completely for messing up.
Next up is 2v2. Along the same vein as Duel, but with a partner. We'll be honest here, this very much depended on who you played with. If you had a friend with a headset, you'd be pretty much guaranteed the win, as the contact is a massive advantage, however if you end up with a randomer, you could quite easily be quickly ganged up on and lose the game quickly. Still great fun however.
The real meat of the game in our opinion is Dominion. a 4 v 4 game mode with an AI army of 'lower' soldiers also alongside. The domination-esc game handles well, with three points scattered across a map and the aim of the game to break the opponents army. At this point you have limited time to hunt down the other heros on the opposite team and eliminate them. No respawn for them now, it's do or die. It's due to this that we had many nail biting and tense matches with us screaming at the screen as 2 Vikings come charging towards the last hero, who managed to knock off one a cliff and then slam his sword into the others head. The screams of joy and the feeling of excitement for a video game is something none of us had experienced in a long time.
For Honor manages what very few games have ever accomplished. They have taken a unique genre, added a difficult concept and cooked up what is a phenomenal game. With only some slight server issues and the small single player as a downfall, Ubisoft have continued their run of great games. 2017 has even more to come, so watch this space. Easily a 5 star game, but remember to put some proper time into it before you stop playing.