Is For Honor for Xbox One worth buying in 2022?

What makes For Honor special?

For Honor is completely unique in the gaming market due to how it takes the fighting game formula to medieval times, where chivalrous knights, honorable samurai, and savage vikings are all vying for control of the lands. Additionally, while most fighting games take place in two-dimensional stages, For Honor's play space is completely three-dimensional, and players can tactically use their environments to their advantages, if they have quick wits and a sharp mind. While For Honor definitely retains several features from other fighting games, such as multiple characters and complicated movesets, it's set apart by its setting, aesthetic, and combat arenas.

Dedicated servers

Arguably the biggest problem that For Honor faced was how poor its player versus player (PvP) networking was in 2017. Without dedicated servers, Ubisoft's new and innovative fighting title had to rely on peer-to-peer connection, which is notoriously unreliable in multiplayer games due to how hiccups in the host's internet connectivity can make stability impossible. Poor internet connections often result in a ruined multiplayer experience, especially ones like For Honor where a single button input can mean the difference between running your opponent through with your blade or not. For an entire year, For Honor dealt with this problem, and it got so frustrating that some players were ready to abandon the game entirely.

However, Ubisoft managed to stop this from happening earlier this year, when it implemented dedicated servers into For Honor. Equipped with dedicated servers, For Honor's online matchmaking instantly saw massive improvements in stability and fluidity. Though the servers weren't perfect at first, Ubisoft spent the following months ironing out the kinks, and eventually For Honor's dedicated servers reached the excellent state they're in now. While some lag is still noticeable, it's rarely anything that harms the gameplay experience.

Balance issues

The other major issue that For Honor was bogged down with at launch was balancing. In the early stages of the game, certain fighters were much better than others, creating an atmosphere where only a small handful of the characters in the game were viable at a competitive level. Over time, Ubisoft has added more combatants, and a few of them, like the Gladiator and the Shaman, were fairly overpowered upon release, as well.

Thankfully, things have evened out over time thanks to Ubisoft's dedicated balancing team. Several balancing patches have all applied appropriate buffs and nerfs to various characters in order to bring most of the roster into a state where every fighter is viable, and while some of them are still better than others, the playing field is much more level.

Final thoughts on For Honor in 2018

Since Ubisoft has managed to solve both of the major problems that For Honor had at launch, what remains is a fantastic game filled with exciting gameplay and plenty of content. While some minor performance issues like slight framerate drop still linger, they barely affect the experience.

For Honor is available now on Xbox One and Steam. Make sure to also check out our review of the latest For Honor expansion, Marching Fire.