Beta Knights – For Honor Closed Beta Impressions

Let me just start off by saying For Honor is ten times harder than I thought it would be. That being said, it is also 10 times more fun than I ever could’ve imagined.

The For Honor closed beta just ended and my feelings on the game are so much better than what they were when I first heard about this game back at E3 in 2015. I was excited when I saw the reveal trailer, but when I saw the actual gameplay I was nervous. I love video games so much, but I’m not afraid to say that I am not a pro esports gamer. So seeing how precise and aware you have to be while playing the game is intimidating. After playing the beta, I still feel like the game is difficult for me, but incredibly rewarding as well.

Starting off you get to choose which faction you want to join: Samurai, Vikings, or Knights. I chose the Samurai just because I find them to be pretty sweet, but all three seem to have different attributes to them:

• Samurai – quick and have lots of stamina.
• Knights – tanks, moving slower but dealing hefty damage.
• Vikings – in the middle, not super fast, but don’t have tonnes of health. They deal a decent amount of damage, but not cripplingly so.

It seems pretty cut and dry at first, but ultimately there are a ton of different variations in each group, and adding in new weapons and gear can definitely change that. After choosing your faction, the game explains Faction Wars. It is the typical type of meta game, where you contribute to your faction by playing the game and earning points. Whoever wins the season, which lasts 2 months, wins exclusive rewards. Pretty simple stuff, but definitely a nice little add on to create some sort of community.

There are three different game modes in the beta. 1v1, 2v2, and 4v4. I opted for the 4v4, especially after getting my butt kicked in the tutorial of 1v1. My first match I decided to go against AI bots. Normally when you play against the bots it is actually pretty easy, making you feel good about yourself.

In For Honour, Hell no.

My team got utterly destroyed. I was kind of discouraged at this point, but I figured I would give the mode another shot, this time going player vs player.

When your team reaches 1000 points, the other team loses the ability to re-spawn. So when you kill their entire team, the game is over. My team reached this goal significantly faster than I would have imagined. I was able to get a decent amount of player kills, so this made me feel much better. Everyone is learning this game together right now, so getting in on the ground floor of this game is pretty important.

After each match, win or lose, you end up getting to scour the battlefield in search of loot. It is a randomly generated loot system, so you could get new weapons, weapon attachments, and even armor. All of these new items boost stats and can create a slightly diverse playing field among fighters.

I think the most interesting thing is the fact that this game has a single player campaign to it. In the CGI trailer at the start of the beta we get to see the cause of the fighting between the three factions, but also a hidden fourth faction that seems to be the instigators, keeping the war going on the outside.

I still feel like the single player stuff won’t be as fleshed out as most games, and I shouldn’t expect too much from it, but I am excited to see what Ubisoft has in store for us.

I plan on sinking some more time in before the official launch, but so far I am sold on the game. And after playing each of the factions, I think I want to switch from the Samurai to the Vikings. I love the mixture of both being agile and powerful.

So what do you guys think? Which faction do you think you will want to join?