For Honor Open Beta Impressions and Thoughts

This marks the second beta from Ubisoft in the past two weeks. First with Ghost Recon: Wildlands closed beta and the For Honor beta was held this past weekend. Both have different release dates, For Honor just released today February 14^th and Ghost Recon will release on March 7^th. That was last weekend, this past weekend I wanted to try out the For Honor beta and was really surprise of how much fun I was having. Note, that this game is not finished and will change in its full release.

Warriors of Honor

I’ve jumped in not know a lot about For Honor, just that the combat system is intricate and deep. The idea of using different warriors in history is intriguing. Each warrior has completely different styles that work to their benefit during battle, for example: the Nobushi has a long spear that gives them range and to add insult to injury, each strike will add a bleeding effect to the enemy, or as a Kensei Samurai you wield a mid-range katana, but is slow when making strikes.

I started out as a Warden (Knight), then once I got a hang of the combat I wanted to challenged myself and decided to switch to Kensei. This warrior class is easy to learn and has devastating quick strikes and a very powerful heavy swing. After playing almost four hours I was getting much better, kicking other players off the ledge, and slaying your opponent when your almost dead yourself is completely satisfying.

In the beta, there were 9 playable classes out of 3 factions Knight, Viking, and Samurai 3 of which are freely opened:

•          Warden (Knight) (Free)
•          Raider (Vikings) (Free)
•          Kensei (Samurai) (Free)
•         Peacekeeper (Knight) (Currency)
•         Berserker (Vikings) (Currency)
•          Orochi (Samurai) (Currency)
•         Conqueror (Knights) (Currency)
•          Warlord (Vikings) (Currency)
•          Nobushi (Samurai) (Currency)

Hacking and Slashing are not for Warriors   

As I mention before the combat system is complex to master, but also easy to jump in and be effective. This is great because, it gives players of all skill level the chance to win. When For Honor was shown at E3 2015 I was excited to finally see the combat system I want in a fighting game, but as the years went my interested faltered. Now that I got the chance to play it hands-on, it was a little more than I expected. The parrying was what I imaged it to be, moving the right stick adjacent the enemy attacks will parry, the heavy and light attack is just like any other fighting game. What I didn’t expect was the special moves you can do when using button combinations, and the fact that you can kick someone off the ledge is an amusing feature.

When facing someone in a battle, you must examine your enemy and learn their movements. In most cases, it’s a game of cat and mouse, waiting until the best opportunity to strike and countering their attacks makes battle encounters feel like a real fight.

Battle in Bunches

For the beta, they open you up to the Faction War which consists of four modes: 1v1 Duel, 2v2 Brawl, 4v4 Dominion, and 4v4 Elimination. 1v1, 2v2, and 4v4 Elimination are the standard kill and win modes, but 4v4 Dominion is different. In 4v4 Dominion, each team must control specific points on the map and earn 1000 points to win the match. There are also smaller units of warriors that will only compete for points on the map, just like creeps in MOBAs. Each mode has something to offer, but I spent most of my time in 1v1 because its more enjoyable when I don’t have to keep watching my back for other enemies.

To make re-playing relevant, there are quests and objectives to complete, like complete a match without dying or kill 8 warriors. These are bounties that you choose from and will reset after 48 hours. Also, there’s another quest system that reset every week and is objective based.

Customized Warrior

After completing a battle, you will gain experience and currency as your reward, but occasionally there will be loot drops that will add statistical advantage to that warrior class. Everything can be customized even your weapon. This gives players an advantage that an opponent can’t see, as this game is about examining and acting, there is no way to see statistical boast from other players.

When I started playing the beta I didn’t think this was my kind of game. At first glance the combat was cool but discouraging and intimidating put that with the aspect of multiplayer this game can seem like for the hardcore audience, but that’s not the case at all. The more I played the more I couldn’t put down the controller. The satisfying nature of killing your enemy in a thoughtful matter is something I want to feel in a lot more in videogames. Even though this was a beta a lot of the game was present in the beta and I enjoyed every moment of it, even if I died horrible deaths.