For Honor

Have you ever wondered who would win in a fight, Knights or Samurais? How about Vikings or Pirates? For Honor is a tactical action fighting game that lets you discover who the best warrior is, with a combination of online battles and a large-scale story campaign. Each warrior class has unique abilities and strategies to learn, but only smart fighting tactics are rewarded. You won't get away with mashing buttons in this game, but that makes it all the more satisfying. With its winning blend of history and fantasy, For Honor is a great fighter with some awesome concepts.

Main Game Features

• Deep third-person fighting system
• Five factions to choose from
• Solo campaign and multiplayer modes

Story

For Honor is set in a world where disaster forces the best warriors from across the world to engage in a deadly fight for resources as various factions fight for supremacy. Urged on by the bloodthirsty battle lord Apollyon, the strongest factions wage a massive war to find out who is worthy of continuing their legacy. The campaign in For Honor jumps between the three major factions, giving the player a glimpse into the battles playing out around the world. Starting with the Knight faction, you'll fight back against Apollyon's Blackstone Legion group, battling for dominance over the land. Later, in the Viking campaign, you'll fight to unite the warring Viking groups to band together and bring the fight back to Apollyon. Finally, the Samurai faction tries to reform after a brutal defeat and gain vengeance on Apollyon for the crimes against their people.

The story in For Honor plays out on a massive scale, allowing for loads of different battle scenarios and events to unfold. However, this makes it scattered in its storytelling, making it hard to root for one group in particular. The result is a hectic war where no one seems quite like the hero, although they all try to fight against one treacherous villain. That said, the combat is fun enough where the story doesn't matter all that much, as it keeps the battles coming and offers new motivations to fight every few hours.

Gameplay

On the surface, For Honor looks like any other hack-and-slash action game, similar to titles like Ryse Son of Rome or Chivalry 2. However, the combat system is much more involved than you might think. In standard battles, you can often obtain victory by slashing through enemies and occasionally blocking, but that all changes when you face off against a powerful foe. In one-on-one battles, you must carefully choose the placement of your strikes and blocks, as mistakes are punished with bloody wounds. Since each different type of warrior has unique moves, skills, and weapons, there's a lot to learn if you want to master the combat system.

In total, there are over 25 different warrior classes, spread across the five factions included in the game. For example, you can play as an assassin-style Gladiator who fights for the Knights, an axe-bearing Viking raider, an Orochi swordsman for the Samurai, and much more. Some classes are inherently stronger than others, but they are all balanced enough where skill is the ultimate contributor to success or failure. This is especially true in multiplayer, where you can't rely on your opponent making mistakes or going easy on you. You can enjoy seven different game modes in multiplayer, both deathmatch and objective based.

Conclusion

If you've ever fantasized about battling in an epic historical war alongside Viking warriors and Samurai swordsmen, For Honor is the game for you. Between the sprawling campaign that covers multiple factions and the in-depth multiplayer modes available, there are tons of ways to practice the art of the blade. That said, this is a game that rewards patience and practice, so players looking for constant mayhem might be slightly disappointed.

Pros

• Fighting requires skill and precision
• Interesting story premise
• Challenging multiplayer

Cons

• High learning curve
• Some losses feel unfair
• Overwhelming at the start