I’ve been playing For Honor since the closed beta and it’s pretty great. Ubisoft Montreal’s fantastic third-person action game has a varied selection of characters, well-designed maps and a neat dominion game mode which mixes king of the hill with search and destroy for an overall appealing multiplayer experience.
However, for me For Honor’s greatest feature is its combat system, which incentivizes stamina conservation and timing over mindless button mashing. I play lots of fighting games in my spare time, so finding out that For Honor’s combat felt like I was playing Killer Instinct rather than Gears of War surprised me more than finding out who my real dad was. The latter was a joke.
For those who don’t know, For Honor allows players to attack and block from three directions, those being left, right and upwards. If you are blocking the same direction as your opponent’s attack, you block it. It’s that simple. However, this is only one slice of the cake, For Honor includes other combat mechanics such as dodging, parries, guard breaks, throws and so on.
This slow-paced strategic style of combat was quite a shock at first. I was hoping to get more experience over the beta weekend, but For Honor made sure I did nothing other than execute people and throw scrubs off cliffs. What’s better is that continued play constantly rewarded me with in-game currency, which I quickly spent on a fancy spike accessory for my helmet.
There are twelve selectable characters in the full game, four for each of the in-game factions, all of which have unique offensive or defensive properties that make for different styles of combat. My favorite character is the Conqueror, who has a shield and flail to counter players when they get too aggressive. On the other hand, players who like to keep at a distance have the Nobushi who pokes enemies to death with long-range spear attacks and bleed damage.
One aspect I really like is the ability to throw players around. In my opinion, taking care of where you’re standing should be important in combat-focused games. If you’re standing by a pit of spikes and are surprised when you get kicked into it, you should’ve been more careful. To give credit where it’s due, the developers allow you to counter throws so that if some enemy is mashing it, you can make him look proper stupid.
Being able to counter everything your opponent does is really the foundation to For Honor. There is nothing other players can do that is unbeatable. Sure, certain characters are very good at certain things, such as the previously mentioned Nobushi’s range making her a pain in the side to get near. However, when you get close, she is weaker than most with her low health and slower attacks.
I’ve focused mostly on the combat and how that works in one vs. one scenarios, but good teamwork in For Honor allows for outnumbered players to find a way to win a losing game. Here’s an example. Another player and I were stuck fighting four players at the end of a dominion game which usually means that we’d be done for. However, since I could keep them busy by kiting around the map, he picked off two guys when they separated from the team. Eventually this lead to a fair two vs. two which we won without much trouble.
For me this sort of focus on teamwork has been absent from third-person action for awhile. Sure, its common throughout MOBAs and games such as CS: GO, but series such as Gears of War have been missing the mark in this aspect with emphasis on solo skill rather than team based coordination.
Overall For Honor’s fighting mechanics have made me very excited for the future of the genre. Previously I thought that innovation takes place mostly within the works of indie developers, so seeing Ubisoft Montreal take strides to change their third-person action game for the better is really cool. I’m pretty hyped to see if Ubisoft continues to innovate, if any other developers follow suit and of course if the full release of For Honor is as good as I hope.
Connor is a games journalist, Staff Writer at VG247. They contributed 9 articles to ICXM in 2017, focused on game reviews, and Xbox news: now writes for VG247 (Gamer Network / IGN Entertainment), recognised in MCV 30Under30 2024.