Game EXP: For Honor (Closed Beta)

Over the last weekend I managed to get in some time with the new online multiplayer hack-and-slash video game from Ubisoft Montreal, For Honor during their closed beta testing.

Now, I have participated in my fair share of beta tests now over the last couple of years (so technically seven, being: The Elder Scrolls Online, Dead Island: Epidemic, EVOLVE, Mirror's Edge: Catalyst, The Elder Scrolls: Legends, GWENT, and now For Honor), so I have a somewhat good idea about what to expect from the beta testing experience, in that I am not expecting a 100% flawless game.  If anything, I expect the game to function in a way that gives me an idea about how it will play once the game is released.  And well, despite my eight attempts I have, at the very least, an idea about how the game should feel come February 14th.

Before we get into too much, this was the game screen I was greeted with after the downloading process and I booted up the game on Friday January 26th:

What is important here is the blue box up in that upper left corner, which reads (if it is too small to read on your respective device):

Warning: Your system is below the minimum requirements. For optimal performance please refer to the supported hardware list.*

So after this warning was given, I figured that I would probably have to lower all of the graphical settings to low if I even wanted to be able to think about testing this apparent beast of a game.  So I booted the game up, watched a beautifully rendered intro movie, set up which faction I wanted to join, designed my shield.  I decided to side with the Vikings (should not be too much of a surprise to people who know me) instead of the Knights or the Samurai.  Upon reaching the first non-menu screen, I optioned up the option screen and before I did anything else, I inverted the Y-axis mouse camera, clicked over to graphics settings and the game crashed.  Slightly perturbed but far from deterred, I started the game up a second time and was pleasantly surprised to find that my shield design had been saved, so I quickly proceed through those menus, and into the game where I quickly tried to look through the settings and the game crashed again.

My third attempt in under 15 minutes was a lot more productive as I was able to find out that my graphical settings were already set to low, the y-axis had maintained the inversion that I previously told it to do and I was able to not only engage in the opening tutorial stage, but actually fight a computer controlled enemy!

As you can probably tell, there seems to be a bit of Windows 98 Solitaire victory animation going on with the background, except that is not supposed to be happening.  It was shortly after killing this fellow that the game again crashed, but this time it was after about 5 minutes after starting the tutorial.  My last attempt that day got me to shortly beyond my last crashing point and I had just killed the second person I was introduced to, then the game crashed a fourth and final time.

Now, on to what I was able to experience with the combat.  If you look at the game's logo over the Viking I was playing, you will notice that it is made up of three identical bars, here with the right side highlighted since the axe blade is on the right side with an attack prepped for the enemy's left side.  In the game, you are able to switch your attacking side to either left, right, or above simply by shifting the mouse in that direction.  Additionally, if your weapon is already on that side when an enemy attacks from that same side your weapon is facing, you will (at least for me) automatically block that attack.  If you click the LMB during their attack, you are able to parry that attack and repost, which is pretty cool to watch.  From what I gathered, the combat system here is pretty intuitive and the tutorial helped get that ingrained.  The only issue I had was that moving the mouse to switch positions of the attack was pretty sensitive, which could be a good or bad thing, probably depending on your particular play style.

Jump ahead now to Saturday morning where I had slightly better lucking giving the beta test a go.  The first attempt though happened to crash after selecting Vikings and the game was on the loading screen.  The second attempt had me playing for about 15 minutes before the game crashed, but whoo-boy was that a mostly exciting 15 minutes!  I fought the dummy, and the two Knights then was prompted to "Capture Zone A", or something to that effect.  In this, I went up against another Knight who was slightly more difficult than the previous two that I fought, but they still went down pretty easily.  Then I went out in the "yard" and fought back a small army of Knight grunts who apparently pose zero threat to you?

What I noticed about these guys was that they went down with a single hit and were unable to damage me.  I do not mean that they could not hit me, they did, by their hits caused no perceptible damage to life bar.  This made me believe that these guys are only around to act as distractions while you fight either other real life players or if there is an higher level fighter that you are going up against.  Either way, mowing through these grunts was pretty satisfying but it started to become repetitive and not as interesting as the one-on-one combat, by the third wave of them.

Immediately following the capturing of Zone B, I was instructed to "Capture Zone C" which pitted me against another single Knight and introduced directional dodging/rolling.  And let me tell you, this Viking fella does not so much dodge-roll as he somersaults hard on the ground and rolls to stand back up; think heavy-roll in Dark Souls.  And then, within seconds after killing this even slightly harder than before Knight, the game crashed.  Because this is an online multiplayer game, I was hoping that some of my progress would have been auto-saved, but upon starting the game for a third time that morning, I was forced to start the tutorial from the very beginning all over again, this time making it to the second objective in the tutorial area (which was hitting the dummy).  The fourth and final time I was able to "lock on" to the dummy (part of Objective 1) and the game crashed.

Now, having not gotten very far in any of my attempted playthrough, I should have wanted to try and get farther, but having a game crash on you four times in less than half an hour kind of takes it out of you.  I was unable to have a third go at the game today before it was taken offline with the option to buy the game replacing the "Play" button, thus ending the closed beta session.  Now, I do not know if there will be an additional beta testing session before the game's official release date on February 14th, but based on my limited experience with For Honor, I would feel that I would wait a while to see how other people experience the game for themselves.

Based on what I was able to play, I would say that Ubisoft Montreal has a pretty good game on their hands with a more than decent fighting mechanic, at least one that I have not come across before.  It would also be interesting to actually go up against a real life person using this type of combat and also a little terrifying as the rest of the world becomes significantly better before those late comers join in.  Match making will also be pretty interesting to see how balancing is pulled off.  And based on the Wikipedia article, which mentions "feats" can be learned, how that factors into one-on-one combat.  And for that matter, is it only one-on-one, or could you end up having three Knights going up against five Samurai who are fighting two Vikings?  These were aspects of the game that I was not able to determine for myself, partly because I was only able to put in less than an hour total over eight attempts with the game crashing each time.

I guess I will just have to wait and see about stability issues, be it me or the game and most definitely, for the price to drop as I am not in the market to buy any game at full price. . .at least until sometime after March.

~JWfW/JDub/Jaconian

Left To Vanish Into The Night

P.S.  One other thing that I noticed, was that the game was only playable in windowed mode.  I saw the option to put the game into fullscreen, but that button was greyed out and I was unable to select it, which would have been my preferred style.

P.P.S.  A couple more screen shots that did not fit within the body of the article:

Seeing as how I rarely saw the front of my Viking fellow here, I wanted to know what the enemies were facing.  I believe the color scheme was part of my selection process too since it is at least somewhat similar.

I really like this picture, which has Mr. Viking tossing away the limp body of one of the grunts.  If the group in front was large enough and you performed a strong attack, you were able to kill a bunch, with the most I was able to take out in a single swing being three.  Pretty satisfying, but again, it became a little old after pushing back wave after wave of these guys, especially since they were not doing any damage which took away any sense of urgency.  But at least the animations were entertaining.


*I never actually checked out the supported hardware list, so I don't have those specifications either.