Review - For Honor

Incredible, impressive and downright awesome. These were the most common words many had when the world was first introduced to For Honor at E3 only a few years ago: in its simplicity, it depicts the ultimate war between three ancient factions, and a source for many conversations spanning across decades. The Knights, plated in their steel armor and longswords. The Vikings, screaming with extreme bloodlust with axes in hand. The Samurai, decisively picking their opponents and carving them with their katanas.
These factions are at war, over a long forgotten reason and each are striving for similar goals; war, stability and peace. It is here that you, the player, take control and watch over the course of years how each faction rises, falls and what becomes of the unnamed continent they continue to fight over.

First I must mention the campaign and its storyline. I went into For Honor considerably blind at what to expect or even what the game would feature. I was pleasantly surprised at the inclusion of the campaign, and the extent of choice you had when playing each faction.
The story is narrated by the leader of the Knights, Apollyon, as you take control of a character of your choosing (including look and sex) from each faction. As a Knight known as Warden, following their time joining the Blackstone Legion and finding the answers that continue to grow in their conscious. Next we have the Vikings; playing as the Raider and suffering against a civil war over food, one clan emerges from the mountain to lead the others in a raid against their Samurai neighbours to plunder their cities. Finally, the Samurai; an Orochi known as the Champion who was jailed for speaking out of turn, you and your clan fight against insurrectionists chosen by the enemy to erect the rightful Emperor to their throne and finally bring the fight to the Knights. "But why?" you may ask. Long ago, on some unknown continent, an event took place that ripped the earth open and destroyed the planet. Humanity struggled to survive and survival turned into a war of attrition. As the earth healed itself, the war continued and the scars of what happened remained.

Each faction has six missions, where you play for the majority as your beginning character but also has one or two missions as another class in your faction. Each is very well voiced, but what surprised me the most is the differences in languages. For example, if you play as a Viking, both Knights and Samurai speak in a different language and are unintelligible to you at that time. Knights speak Latin, Vikings speak Icelandic, and Samurai (surprise) speak Japanese. The stories themselves are pretty well contained and unique and don't truly converge to one another until the last three missions of the Samurai. What is there won't exactly "wow" you or move you into another state of thinking, but its entertaining enough to watch how each faction deals with their issues and how your character overcomes their own personal problems. With a solid 12 hours of gameplay in the campaign alone, with or without your friends in a group of four, this is incredibly impressive for a mostly multiplayer game.

Sound effects, musical score and even the programming are utterly incredible, to the point where I must point out how impressive they can be. The attention to detail in game is phenomenal; sounds were created for the baubles that hang from a Samurai, for the optional necklace your Raider can wear, and it doesn't stop there. Have your blade dawn and facing towards the light? It's possible to glare it into the camera! It's these small details, along with the accurate and appropriate soundtrack that can truly drag you into the world the developers have created.
Graphics are beautiful and very well done, with exceptional detail on the shadows, plant life and body models. It was a small disappointment to see 99% of the models being carbon copies, especially the grunts, but its understandable to have this issue in games where engines can handle so much and developers have only so little time. 
Speaking of time, customisation is also a HUGE part of this game, and if you've followed me for a long time, you know this is an instant love of mine in any game. Immediately starting the game will ask you to pick your faction and customise your own personal crest which follows you over your name and on your character if you so choose. Not only that, each faction's characters can be leveled up and customised based on what loot you find after ever mission in the campaign or multiplayer, or can be bought with steel (or microtransations) in the in-game currency. It can somewhat limit the look you want to make for your character, but a lot of the items can be morphed into different looks in the options menu, so that higher level item can be changed to something suitable. Follow that with customisation to how your character emotes, its armor and weapon look, what executions it can do and so on, and there's plenty for you to do in your downtime too.

This brings me to the gameplay itself. In a word: strenuous. Each class has similar, although somewhat different, controls and fighting styles depending on their weapon. What really spices up the combat is the blocking and more challenging moves; each class has a domination over one another. For example, the Viking Raider is incredibly strong but moves slow during combat, so a quicker enemy like the Samurai's Orochi can take it down quickly with small hits. If the player is still enough however, there are moves for the Raider that can break through any defense. The game comes down to strategy and who you fight against. A fight can be over in seconds or last minutes depending on the classes and how well the player knows them.
Finally, the multiplayer. In picking your faction, players can fight across the continent in five modes: Dominion is a 4v4 King of the Hill type gamemode fighting against players, AI or both to control three point zones. Brawl is 2v2 and 4v4 Elimination Deathmatch, Skirmish is a 4v4 Team Deathmatch to reach 1000 points, and finally Duel is a 1v1 fight against another player in five rounds. The objective is to fight and win against your enemy in order to advance your faction into the borders of the enemy and stay there, all the while completing quests for steel and unlockables.
Personally speaking, Duel is by far the best and most engaging mode in the multiplayer; it truly captures that feeling of fighting one on one against an equally skilled fighter. Skirmish and the Brawl modes are also incredibly fun and engaging, helping you work as a team against the enemy. Skirmish has its moments too, but don't expect to duel against players in the midst of a fight: the AI and grunts will come after you regardless.

Of course, this brings me to the bugs I found during the game. I only experienced one KTD during the campaign itself, but its the multiplayer that has the majority of issues. Skirmish, despite being the most highly played, is the mode with the most issues: no game within my time (so far) playing in that mode has been bug free. Random drops to both myself or the entire party can occur, with many games never getting past the VS menu, or simply never loading past the small cutscene. It is an incredible shame to see another Ubisoft game released with a mass amount of bugs. Its understandable to happen; perhaps they didn't expect this large of a community, perhaps things were simply missed as large AI controlled games go, but either way they are issues and must be reported to be fixed.

In the end, as a reviewer I must give my honest opinion. To be blunt, there are plenty of issues in the multiplayer as of writing this review. But what lies underneath is a well planned and honestly addictive game. Even as I write this review, I cannot help but hope to finish soon just to get back into fighting for the Samurai faction to win the round. No game is perfect, and very few are released without its faults. The campaign alone is enough to hold this title above the average, but what keeps it there is the massive amount of customisation, the well designed maps in both campaign and multiplayer and the creative use of combos and challenge there is to have in fighting.
Original IPs are considered risks by AAA companies these days, but Ubisoft was willing to give it a chance, and I hope it pays out for them in the end. 
For Honor has all the wants for medieval and combat lovers alike. Get you dueling gloves ready, and I'll meet you on the battlefield.

For Honor - 8/10