Pre-order For Honor

There's something to be said about how simple it is to pick up and play For Honor, but that simplistic control scheme belies a surprising amount of combat depth. At E3 2016, I had some hands-on time with For Honor and checked out two levels: I was a knight defending a castle under siege, and then I was a Viking as they raided a samurai city.

Fighting in the early game is very duel-like, where you lock on to an enemy and then the two of you are the only ones hitting each other while other friends and foes either honorably observe or fight one another. Once locked on, you move the right thumbstick in one of three directions to set up your block. This also sets up your attacking direction, so if you deliver a light or heavy attack, it will be toward that region. However, the enemy's blocking reticle is also displayed, so you often have to block some of their attacks and then flick one of your own back to them.

You can also dodge out of the way of incoming attacks, and you can break the guard of anyone who is turtling in front of you. The Viking can take that guard break a step further and pick up the enemy to slam them into sharp spikes or throw them off of cliffs. However, the enemy can do many of the same things to you, so smarter enemies will break your guard if you just have your block up.

This combat system lends itself to a high skill ceiling, where it all comes down to who is better at feinting attacks and blocking/dodging the attacks of their opponent. This is true for the single-player portion but will be just as true in the multiplayer modes, which I didn't get to check out. Some of the AI opponents were quite good at bursting off attacks in different directions and keeping me on my toes.

You can also find power-ups, or feats, within the game world. One type of feat restores a segment of health, whereas another called berserk makes you deal more damage. Yet another feat lets you mark an enemy for death to drop their defense. The latter feats are relatively uncommon but give your character a ton of power — but you can only carry two types of feats with you.

You will happen across regular enemy soldiers that you cannot lock on to, but you can scythe through them like a badass. Anything stronger requires fighting while locking on to foes, but if those enemies are felled with a strong attack, you may get the option to execute them with a brutal end move.

For Honor is simple, but it offers a lot of fun and a ton of depth when it comes to dueling with an enemy on the battlefield. The baddies get quite adept at messing you up as you progress, and the game rewards players who get really good at blocking and countering. The title is coming out on the PS4, Xbox One and PC on Valentine's Day 2017.