I’ve not kept up with the plot of For Honor, a game where buff lads and lasses chop each other’s limbs off with elaborate pointy sticks. But as Ubisoft’s brawny fighter enters its fourth year, they’re putting down the swords – if only for a little while. While Year 4 might be the “Year of Reckoning”, Season 1 is entitled “Hope”, and sees all three factions holding nervous truce. Oh, they’ll get to decapitating soon enough, but for now, there’s a platter of shiny gear to be earned, through a new battle pass arriving next week.
There’s plenty for Ubi to get through in Year 4, and only a four-minute trailer to do it in. Chop chop!
Alright, let’s start with the big’un. For Honor is ditching its tried-and-tested Year Pass, which offered up a year’s worth of new heroes for a set fee. Instead, the game’s hopping onto the battle pass trebuchet. You know the drill – 100 tiers of content, separate rewards for free and paying players, grinding out tiers or buying them for real-world dosh, your typical affair. End-of-round rewards, store rotations and content of the week will still remain, if you’re not too fussed on grinding out levels.
Year 4 will still feature new heroes, though you won’t be buying a season pass worth of them at the start of the year. Ubi claim they’ll be releasing two of them – one in Season 2, one in Season 4 – to tie into the year’s ongoing plot, available to purchase using in-game or paid currency.
That story, then. For Honor had a campaign, but it was a bit naff – a “hackneyed tapestry sewn together from Ubisoft’s big box of levels”, Brendy so generously called it back in his review. But Ubisoft have been pushing the game more in the direction of its contemporaries – games like Fortnite or Overwatch that tell their stories through in-game events and subtle map changes. You can catch the feeling in this brief Season 1 trailer. I’m sure this hand-holding friendship lark won’t last.
Really, I reckon this’ll largely come down to excuses to twist fashion in different directions each month. In fact, Ubi stress that the fashion will be very, very good this year. What is For Honor, really, if not a buff Viking dress-up contest?
There are more vague allusions towards other areas of the game, including changes to competitive play and the team’s ongoing approach to balance, hinted at in a Year 4 announcement post earlier this month.
Year 4 Season 1 swings into action on Thursday, February 6th with its new battle pass in tow.