For Honor is a fighting game, the same category as the Mortal Kombat series and the Street Fighter games.  However For Honor has a very unique system of fighting I have never seen before in other games of it’s category.

What it would be like if Knights, Vikings, and Samurai all met up and had a huge battle? For Honor answers that question and has that whole idea as it’s setting.  As a player you choose your faction and fight for that faction to gain as much territory as possible on the World Map. Whoever has the most territory by the end of that season wins some awesome loot.  To customize your character and buy new ones with the in-game currency, called renown.

There are different classes in each faction with different abilities and combos. There is the vanguard, your standard and easy to learn characters.  You have your heavy class, which have a lot of health but are pretty slow. You have your assassin class, fast but almost no health or defensive capabilities.  Finally there is hybrids, a mix between the classes listed before.  A few examples would be Warden, who wields a longsword and is the vanguard for the Knights faction.  Warlord, who has a shield and short sword and is the heavy for the Viking faction.  Lastly there is Orochi, who wields a katana and is the assassin for the Samurai faction.  These are only a small chunk of the characters in the game.

The fighting system is what makes this game unique among other fighting games.  There are three directions you can block or attack in, left, right, or top. There is heavy and light attack as well as a zone attack.  Light attacks are quick but don’t do much damage, heavy attacks are slow but have a high damage reward for pulling one off, and there is a zone attack which attacks in a circle around you hitting multiple targets at once.  Guard break is another mechanic in the game. Once you enemy is guard broken you can open with an attack or you can do a guard throw, pushing them in any direction you want. You can throw you enemy into a wall to get more damage off before they recover or you can throw them off a cliff for an easy yet dishonorable kill.

There are many game modes the most popular being 1v1 duels, 4v4 dominion, and 4v4 death-match.  Winning these games gives you renown, customization, and troops. Troops are used to capture territory as stated earlier.  The customization in for honor does play a role in how a fight will go down.  Each specific piece of armor such as arms, chest, blade, etc.  Each armor piece can either be used to make you take more hits while decreasing other specific stats or the other way around.  Parts of your weapon is like that too, except it’s attack instead of defense.  These stats only take effect in the 4v4 game modes.

Like every game For Honor is not without problems, however. The community in For Honor can be very mixed at times.  One game you can be with a respectful team that appreciates your work towards winning, but next game both teams will be the most toxic players that yell at your every move and call you trash at games when you get overpowered by 3 of the enemy players.  The toxic type of players are sadly the players you will see more of in For Honor. The community is the weakest aspect of the game by far, but it has gotten better than what it used to be.  The server in the game aren’t the greatest either.  You could have gotten your most damaging combo off on you enemy only to seemingly go back in time with half of you health gone.  You can also hit someone and their body will drop to the floor but suddenly reanimate into a heavy attack headed at your face.

For Honor is also receiving some new characters, maps, and a whole new faction, the Wu Lin, this October.  For honor costs $14.99 for the starter addition or $59.99 for the standard edition. The difference between the starter and standard edition is you get the season pass, can play every character, the option to customize characters is cheaper, and you get more renown from completed games. I hope to see you soon on the battlefield of For Honor.