Every time I see For Honor, the third person medieval-themed team hero brawler from Ubisoft, I get excited. Having played it at the Electronic Entertainment Expo the past two years, PAX West afforded another opportunity to go hands on with Ubisoft's new IP. For Honor lets players decide an age-old question: Which medieval warrior would best the others: a Knight, a Viking and a Samurai?
At PAX West, Ubisoft showed off more of the 4v4 Conquest gameplay. In this game mode, teams of four are pitted against each other with the objective of taking three control points on the map. Hold these areas and you gain points for your team. Once your team reaches 1000 points, you "break" the opposing team, meaning there is no respawn for the breaking side. All you have to do is play clean up.
For Honor feels like a MOBA in a sense that one of the control points also contains minions. In the map we played at PAX, which had me and another journalist pitted against two other players and bots, control point B had the minion spawn. These trash mobs aren't hard to kill and controlling that point does allow for greater control over the center area of the map.
I played the Samurai class Kensai, wielding a mighty No-Dachi Katana. He was nimble, had enormous range, but was hard to combat units once they got up close. The second match I went with the Knight, which had great mobility on the map, as well as power. However the range seemed limited when compared to the Kensai.
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For Honor also showed off the "Revenge" Meter. As you take damage, or deal damage, your meter fills. Once you hit a certain amount of revenge, you can activate the skill which gives you increased speed and damage over a short duration. I found that when being attacked by multiple players that the revenge meter filled more quickly, allowing me to turn the tables on a coordinated attack and defeat my enemy.
The best thing about For Honor so far is the team seems intent in letting player skill and team tactics decide the match. It's not a game where you simply pop off skills and a well-timed ultimate could swing the match. Instead, it's up to your ability to fight your opponents, block and parry their attacks and batter down their defenses. Your skill versus theirs. Additionally, team work is a must to coordinate how to take points, which ones to focus on, as well as creating helpful diversions to draw the enemy away from where your real focus might be.
For Honor is quietly coming along as a much anticipated title from the Assassin’s Creed publisher, and a seemingly solid one at that. For Honor is slated to release February 14, 2017 on PC, PlayStation 4 and Xbox One.
