It helps to think of For Honor as a “first-person shooter with swords,” but that may be oversimplifying what the game’s creative director Jason VandenBerghe and his team are trying to accomplish. For Honor wants to put a weapon in your hand and place you in the middle of a visceral, credible battlefield. For Honor wants to give you the tools and playstyles to unite with your friends or fight against them.
Ubisoft announced their For Honor during E3 2015 and with the buzz from the convention winding down, many were left wondering what the game is about. iDigitalTimes spoke with VandenBerghe about the mysterious new title and what gamers can expect from a potential new genre for video games.
In For Honor, you’ll play as a male or female knight, viking or samurai. Once you decide which factions fits you best, you’ll be able to tweak the values and the cosmetic aspects of your Warden. There will be level progression where you hero can earn XP, but the most important part of For Honor is making your character your own.
“Each class has multiple heroes,” VandenBerghe said. “Each hero is a combination of a weapon, a type of armor and a fighting style. You’ll have different combinations [to play with]. You’ll be able to customize your heroes, your ‘warden’, but that character will always fight with a long sword and heavy armor.”
He added, “Each hero will have their own style. Currently what we’ve got is a [type of] long sword that comes from Western martial arts, which is this rediscovered form of ancient long sword fighting- it’s based around the idea your sword is your shield.”
For Honor debuted its Dominion mode during E3 this year; matches for this mode will last about eight to 12 minutes. VandenBerghe said shorter matches work for For Honor because of the intensity of the battles. The game will have an online multiplayer, co-op play with a split-screen and solo campaign. The campaign will be its own entity in the game, a reason for you to play offline when you’re done playing online, but For Honor won’t force you to play online.
As for the game’s lore, For Honor is keeping details about their solo campaign close to their chest right now. VandenBerghe joked the game may have historical elements and inspiration from actual fighting styles, but the absurdity of putting some of the greatest warriors on the same battlefield is what keeps him going.
“It’s not a game about history- obviously Samurais didn’t fight Vikings on a European battlefield. That didn’t actually happen,” VandenBerghe said. “I mean it should’ve.[Laughs] Let’s just say that it did. That’s kind of what we’ve done because we need a world, right? We’re gonna have a world where that’s happening...We want to let you experience the promise of being a warrior.”
There’s a lot more to come for For Honor than what Ubisoft showed off on the E3 floor. VandenBerghe and his team pride themselves with their development style of "fail faster, follow the fun." The team won’t "polish a turd" and has 400 builds to prove how they refuse to settle on their grandiose vision.
“Honestly, this game has been in my head for about 12 years. This is that game. This is my bucket list game,” VandenBerghe said. “[The inspiration] came from the style of Western Martial arts. I was learning and taking a course in it because I’m that guy. My whole life has been about this stuff. I started thinking about controllers and how we could map that very simple system. The controller scheme that you play in [For Honor] kind of jumped into my head. I thought, ‘Oh my god, this would be so cool I want to play this game!’ And for 10 years I was pitching it and the answer was always ‘No-no-no-no-no-no-no-no and no! We don’t make that kind of game.’”
He continued, “Then I pitched it to the right guy. I pitched it to Yannis Mallat, the general manager of Ubisoft Montreal. Instead of saying no he said, ‘I’d like you to meet some people.’ He introduced me to this amazing team at Ubisoft Montreal that had worked on Naruto and a bunch of other stuff. I pitched it to them and they were like, ‘Huh, that’s an interesting idea. Kinda f***ed up in a few ways, but we can help you fix it.’
VandenBerghe explained the Ubisoft developers working on For Honor are running daily playtests to polish their unique gameplay mechanics because they don’t have anything to draw from. For example, you won’t be able to button mash in For Honor’s multiplayer. Let’s say your opponent is blocking their left side. If you go to strike their right side, your opponent can anticipate the move and quickly block your strike. You’ll need to be faster and more calculating than your opponent to lead your army to victory.
“There was nothing else out there that was doing this, which is really exciting,” VandenBerghe said. “It’s a lot of fun to do, but also hard because we’re really just paving new ground. We think what we’ve ended up with a new genre [in For Honor] in a way. Of course we don’t decide that.”
For Honor, which is currently in-development, will be available for the PS4, Xbox One and PC. iDigitalTimes had the opportunity to play For Honor at E3. Check out what we thought about the Ubisoft’s newest IP here.
