Full disclosure: up until recently, I haven’t
really cared about For Honor. I saw its reveal trailer and thought it was
fine -- something that’d find a home in the arms of gamers, but not something I
was tripping over myself to play. So all
the news, articles, footage, and interviews that have likely gone up by this
point? My tactical dodge-rolling let me
miss every last bit of it. Am I richer
or poorer for it? Time will tell.
Conversely, my brother was decidedly amped up for
it. He’d bring it up in passing every
now and then, in the same awed tone he’d used to show excitement for upcoming
games he was sure wouldn’t let him
down (like Destiny and The Division, both of which he dropped
within 1.5 months). But when it comes to
hype, he’s no stranger to it. So he
announced one night that he got into the For
Honor alpha -- through what I assume is a Faustian blood ritual vis a vis
uPlay and the Ubisoft Club -- and invited me to try out the split-screen
multiplayer. It turned out that said
split-screen wasn’t in the alpha (which I can’t say was a surprise), but we
both had some hands-on time with it.
What do I think of it? Who cares, baby? There’s a bigger question at hand here:
what’s Ubisoft’s endgame with this, uh, game?