E3 2016: We Cross Swords With The ‘For Honor’ Demo!

At the Ubisoft Lounge during this year’s E3, I had the opportunity to play a short demo from the company’s new working title, For Honor!  For Honor is a game where the central gameplay focuses on a battles between Knights, Samurai, and Vikings in a war-torn world.

The demo jumps you right in the middle of the action where you’re trying to protect a fortress from oncoming invaders.  The demo is tutorial based, so everything happens as is necessary to learn the essential functions of the game.  The focus in particular is placed on movement, and combat.

First, you will find that movement feels really heavy.  This doesn’t have to be a bad thing–considering the soldiers are full clad in body armor, it almost seems appropriate for them to have a heavy feel.  You start as a higher ranked knight, and you can truly tell the difference between your character and the armies that surround you–you almost tower over the lower ranked knights.

One of the first fights places you in a sparring match with an enemy knight of the same rank.  The combat system is based on blocking and counterattacking–by mimicking your opponent’s stances, you can block their attacks and then follow up with attacks of your own.  There are buttons you can press to break their guard as well.  Some of the combat is reminiscent of the sword battles in Assassin’s Creed 2, before they started giving you extra tools of the trade to make combat easier.  It requires a lot of focus–at times you may stand there for even a minute straight, waiting for your opponent to make the first move.

You won’t always have to be forced into this one on one combat system, as the “small fry”, or lesser enemy soldiers, can be felled by one quick swipe of your sword.  It can feel exhilarating taking out a horde of smaller enemy soldiers as they rush towards you.  It’s also worth noting that environmental hazards can change the combat, such as taking damage by trying to walk through fire.  And like most other games, you can replenish health by grabbing and using the items as well.

The graphics are great, but may be defined based on the platform.  I believe I was playing it on PC using a controller similar to an Xbox One’s (I’m about 90% sure of that).  I never noticed any slowdown when many enemy soldiers were coming towards me, the graphics and texture of the bricks and stones on the fort showed great detail on age and weather, and even the battle scarred armor was pristine in its presentation.

For Honor looks like it’s shaping up to be an interesting swords combat and war game!  And I’m sure it’ll be even more interesting when we’re able to freely try each of the factions against each other, with contrasting swordplay styles!