Vikings, samurai, and knights face off in this month's 'For Honor' closed beta

By Gabe Gurwin January 10, 2017

For Honor Cinematic Trailer: Closed Beta Date Announcement – The Thin Red Path [US]

For Honor is shaping up to be one of this year’s most unique titles, delivering a mix of action and fantasy in both single-player and competitive multiplayer environments, and if you’ve been itching to try it out prior to its official release, you’ll soon be able to. The For Honor closed beta begins across PlayStation 4, Xbox One, and PC on January 26.

The closed beta will give you access to “War of the Factions,” which has players choosing to become a member of the Knights of the Iron Legion, Warborn Vikings, or Samurai of the Dawn Empire. This choice will stick with you for the duration of the beta, and allows you to take part in a cross-platform, ongoing battle for global domination. Even if you choose to play as another warrior in particular matches during the beta, the points you receive will still go toward your chosen faction.

“Depending on your performance,” you’ll be awarded “War Assets” at the end of every match, which are allocated to particular regions of the War of the Factions map. These are also attainable if you choose to play against AI instead of real players, and will still count toward the overall War of the Factions struggle for dominance.

Everyone who participates in the closed beta will also be rewarded with exclusive “Emblems of Old” that correspond to their chosen factions. Once For Honor officially releases, these can be redeemed and you can “adorn your weapons and armor with their distinction.” Ubisoft promises that more exclusive rewards will also be available, and these will transfer over to the full game, as well.

For Honor‘s closed beta runs from January 26 through January 29, and you can sign up to participate here. The full game, which requires an online connection across both single-player and multiplayer, hits Xbox One, PlayStation 4, and PC on February 14.

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Ubisoft has a few notoriously troubled games in development that have left fans scratching their heads for years now. Aside from Beyond Good and Evil 2, the most curious game that has managed to avoid cancellation despite years of delays, restarts, and who knows what else behind the scenes is the pirate game Skull and Bones. It was first announced in 2017, and we've gotten almost nothing but bad news regarding this title in the years since. Despite having a playable build in 2018, for press only, the game has undergone major, if not complete overhauls.

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Atlas Fallen unexpectedly gives Forspoken some real competition

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Encouraged exploration
Based on my demo, I'm not fully sure what to expect from Atlas Fallen's mysterious story yet. The basic premise is that player was a person from the lowest caste in this world's society who was bonded with an ancient gauntlet. That gauntlet has an amnesic spirit named Nyaal living inside it and is now trying to save the world from gods that have left it in desert-filled ruins. The narrative wasn't a big focus in my preview build, though, and the script is full of jargon that probably will only make sense once I play more of the game.
A talking companion bonded to the player's arm and hand is already an unexpected narrative coincidence between Forspoken and Atlas Fallen. But neither game's story is the appeal of either to me: It's their fun traversal and combat that interest me. The few seconds of Atlas Fallen's sand-surfing and fighting in its Gamescom trailer caught my eye last year, and both lived up to the hype.

As I worked my way out of a cave at the start of the demo, I learned how to raise large structures out of the ground, surf across large patches of sand, and dash through the air with the help of my gauntlet. After I entered the game's open world, I could play around with all my movement options and found them to be a treat. Open-ended games with large worlds like Atlas Fallen can live or die on how satisfying they are to explore, and making movement fun is a crucial way developers can make traversal enjoyable.
Forspoken was able to capture some of that magic despite its problems, and it looks like Atlas Fallen has too. Of course, that's only one part of the game, as players will run into many enemy Wraiths and need to fight them. That's where Atlas Fallen's engaging combat system comes into play.
Satisfying combat
Deck13 and Focus Entertainment had yet to go into much detail about Atlas Fallen's combat before now, so I was shocked by how unique it was. The core combat revolves around attacking, dodging, and parrying, with weapons shapeshifting as you use them in different ways. It's faster-paced than I expected from a developer who previously made Souslikes, but it's the Ascension system that really caught my attention.
In between fights, players can equip their character with Essence Stones that buff or add abilities, assigning them to one of three tiers in the process. Once they are in a fight, attacking and defeating enemies causes players to gain momentum, which fills a bar at the bottom left of the screen. As this bar fills, or "ascends," players gradually gain those Essence Stone abilities, getting more powerful the more aggressive they are.
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