Playing any game against really well-designed AI can feel humiliating, but Ubisoft has taken it to the next level in the recent For Honor by giving its bots taunt animations that aren’t even available to players.
Players on Reddit and elsewhere have noticed the bot-exclusive taunts, some of which were collected in a post on Eurogamer. In one example, an enemy samurai draws a katana sword, holds it up sideways in front of his face, and drops it on the ground, spreading his arms wide — a clear mic drop. In another, a large knight rides a halberd like a galloping pony.
For Honor has an extensive selection of emotes for players to direct at one another, but in most games, the AI behaves a little more — courteously isn’t the word — mechanically? It literally is the computer, after all.
Maybe it’s the game’s intimate combat that caused Ubisoft to program in these responses. For Honor features brutal combat that tests players’ ability to anticipate their opponents’ moves while switching rapidly between stances to take advantage of any weakness. Many battles boil down to simple, heated duels, which can make any conflict — even one against a bot — feel personal. It certainly adds a little salt to the wound when you’re beaten by a bot and then relentlessly taunted, especially when it’s a taunt you can’t even use yet.
According to Eurogamer, the emotes mentioned above are set to be released in the game for players to buy eventually, but they’re currently exclusive to For Honor‘s extremely snarky bots.
Also of note: The AI names generated by the game, including gems like “WhyNotJay,” “Grey2Scale,” “DroolTroll,” “YourNameOnMySword,” “DroidParty,” “MashdButtr,” and “LeftShark.” As Eurogamer pointed out, the developers of For Honor are certainly having fun with their player base, even if it’s somewhat at those players’ expense.
