For Honor – game review |

For Honor
is the brainchild of Jason Vandenberg
, who acted as the project manager. The very idea of ​​the game appeared 15 years ago, when Jason first became interested in the German school of fencing. This is a historical style of fighting, actively used by the Holy Roman Empire, lasting until the Renaissance and early modern times. Some of the main principles of the school were speed, a small amount of luck and tactical planning for almost every strike. Moreover, the complexity of the theoretical part was often overshadowed by the importance of practice. This was real art, and adherents of this school were a kind of artists who painted their canvases with the blood of fallen enemies. Encouraged by all this, Jason thought it would be a good idea to adapt real-life sword swinging into a game format.

The villainess herself. It frightens not only with its medieval hockey mask, but also with its bloodthirstiness.

Jason’s obsession with making a game about feints with swords grew more and more new ideas and details, and then entered the scene
Ubisoft
, deciding that this concept could bring good profits, and gave the green light to develop the game. You can see for yourself what came of it.

Although
For Honor
By all indications, it is a multiplayer game; it also has a story campaign, designed for both single play and lively co-op. Structurally, the adventures of the Vikings, samurai and knights are divided into three chapters — one for each of the factions — during which the writers tried to reveal some of the characters and their motivations, introduced the player to the main and secondary characters, and also tried to show the scale of the unfolding mess started by one strong and an independent lady.

Visually, the game looks pretty good, and on all platforms.

Don’t expect any revelations from the script. The story is stitched with white threads and is replete with meaningless and empty dialogues, often needed only to once again show the coolness of this or that character, or simply to dilute the silence in game videos. Thus, almost at the very beginning of the game, Justiciar Cross, who is in charge of the siege of the fortress, suggests that the commander stop shedding the blood of his people and solve everything with a duel, which causes him almost hysteria and panic, which he does not even think of hiding. A little later, the game’s antagonist, Apollyon, will talk about wolves and sheep, skewering helpless knights on her huge sword.

Nevertheless, the single-player campaign is still memorable for its dashing horse chases, spectacular sieges of several fortresses using giant rams and siege weapons, and even a game of tag with a giant elephant.

It’s a pity that the sieges are passing too quickly.

Speaking of Apollyon. The main villain does not claim to be the best, but she copes with her direct responsibilities quite well. She is easily able to instill fear even in her allies and show her enemies that getting involved with her is more expensive for themselves, and her stupid and senseless at first glance plan to ignite a large-scale war of everyone with everyone closer to the end of the game will not seem so stupid. Well, maybe just a little.

The main message is that war is bad, but inevitable. It is the nature of stupid people to destroy each other and bathe in rivers of blood, and there is no escape from it.

Campaign in
For Honor
rather, it is needed to introduce the player to various game classes, show all their strengths and weaknesses, and also teach the basics of gameplay. She does it just perfectly. The tasks are structured in such a way as to fully reveal the potential of each hero. Here you have the Holders, storming enemy fortresses as part of a huge army and chopping enemy generals into goulash; deliverers, quietly sneaking behind enemy lines to cause sabotage and rip open the bellies of bearded barbarians; or Kensei hunting enemies in bamboo thickets and punishing cowards. Unfortunately, the developers couldn’t figure out how to use all the dozen available heroes in the campaign, leaving several interesting bunglers out of work.

Vikings doing their usual thing — raids, murders and plunders.

The campaign also teaches the player to use environmental elements such as spikes protruding from walls that cause accidents, boiling geysers, steep cliffs and much more, as well as the importance of teamwork. It’s just a pity that the artificial intelligence of your comrades sometimes forces you to close the game to hell and commit hara-kiri to yourself. Degenerates easily forget about the goals of the mission and it doesn’t cost them anything to suddenly stop and start counting crows while, say, a shugoku is processing you into mince with its kanabo. Or sometimes they interfere when their help is absolutely not required. But most of all they like to finish off enemies with whom you have been fussing for a dishonestly long time.

But, as already mentioned, the campaign in
For Honor
is, rather, just a long training task designed to harden the player for the unforgiving multiplayer mode. At the very beginning of the game, you are asked to choose one of three factions, and then make your overwhelming contribution to the common good cause of wringing out territories from the other factions. It is worth noting that the choice of faction does not affect the available heroes. So, playing as knights, you can easily try yourself in the role of Nobushi or a bearded barbarian with a wooden shield. There are three sides in the game: Vikings, samurai and knights. Each side offers a choice of four heroes, each of which is unique in its own way, although it shares some features with its counterparts from other factions. There are among them real heroes, clad in heavy armor and able to easily withstand several blows to the head with a two-handed ax, but do not boast of agility; there are dexterous, fast and flimsy killers, playfully evading enemy attacks, but at the same time inflicting considerable damage; There are also more balanced classes that can easily play both defense and attack.

This is far from the largest battle with enemy forces.

Multiplayer, in which players will spend the lion’s share of time, is divided into five game modes: “Territory Capture”, “Duel”, “Slaughter”, “Extermination” and “Skirmish”. The simplest are “Duel” (1 on 1 fight) and “Slaughter” (4 on 4 mash), in which players only need to kill each other as quickly as possible. But these modes can rightfully be considered the most interesting, since it is in them that the game reveals itself to the fullest. You need to actively use the elements of the environment, monitor the state of endurance of the selected character and try not to let yourself be pinned into a corner, planning your actions several steps ahead.

“Territory Capture” can be considered an equally interesting mode, in which players, mixed with puny extra soldiers, fight for control of several points on the map. The only pity is that all the fun of participating in a brutal battle can quickly disappear due to the cluttered user interface. Dozens of soldiers flashing before your eyes make it very difficult to effectively fight with other players, almost completely obscuring your view.

Simple soldiers act as cannon fodder, which even shields cannot save from the heroes.

Players’ victories also have an impact on the overall world map, helping the selected faction to capture new territories. The incentive for players to give their all is provided by numerous gadgets and stylish clothes, which serve as a reward for their feasible contribution to the common cause. In addition to outrageous new items, players can use real money or hard coins to buy various equipment that affects various qualities of the selected hero — speed and attack power, endurance, and so on. Fortunately, these things do not greatly affect the gameplay, because the outcome of the battle still depends on the straightness of the player’s hands, and are only available in 4v4 modes.

Main complaints about
For Honor
The system for selecting opponents and comrades in multiplayer mode can be considered completely broken. The game often pitted us against a team of AI-controlled bobbleheads against a team of other players, with predictable results, of course. Or, even worse, the game threw us into a team of useless crustaceans, completely unfamiliar with the game mechanics, who more often bathed in boiling geysers and drowned in swamps than helped in any way.