For Honor - Gladiator & Highlander

It happened that Ubisoft and co. have finally released the promo videos for Gladiator and Highlander, and etc. Yay! But what can be said about them?

The Gladiator, as I might have mentioned in the past, is armed with a trident and a small shield – I believe that it is a buckler, rather than a net. This makes FH’s Gladiator their own creation, (sort of), rather than a take-away copy of one of RL gladiators, such as the Retiarius, (armed with a trident and a net), or the Murmillo, (armed with a shield and a short, stabbing sword). And? It is no big deal.

Let me elaborate. Ever since ‘For Honor’ became available, I had a strong suspicion that it’d been influenced, no matter how bigly or smally, by ‘Deadliest Warrior’, both the TV series and the video game that it tried to sell as part of its’ franchise. The former was discussed repeatedly in the past; the latter was one of those one-on-one combat games, where people could play a pirate, a knight, a Roman centurion, a Spartan warrior, etc., fighting each other: this was it. Even ‘For Honor’, for all of its flaws, was more advanced, from the start.

Now, the Gladiator, (and we are talking about DW the TV show here, not the game), was one of the very first two characters introduced by DW. He fought the Apache in the opening episode of the series, and lost. That is not surprising; the Gladiator’s weapons were more ceremonial, while the Apache’s were more practical, but what matters to us here was that DW too had ignored all of those little RL distinctions of the gladiatorial combat, and rather made ‘their’ Gladiator out of everything, and the kitchen sink besides. No style, no strategy, and he still lost. This does, and did, raise questions about the integrity of DW’s rating system…but I discussed this before, and it is not the point. The point is that FH’s Gladiator is built along the same lines as DW’s was, and it works. Hell, in their promo ‘For Honor’ admitted that ‘their’ Gladiators were newcomers to the battlefield, and that it was up to the players to decide just how well the Gladiators will perform.

And the trident itself? Yes, it is more of a ritualistic weapon than a practical one, but ‘For Honor’ is an online game, so such discussions are moot. Except that ‘For Honor’ itself brings it up with Highlander’s claymore sword.

In RL, the claymore was one of the two-handed swords that were invented in Europe; in fantasy terms, GoT’s Ned Stark’s sword Ice was a claymore, or a two-handed sword, or a greatsword – pick your term or make your own, okay? Yes, it makes sense for Highlander’s claymore to be bigger, more massive and more powerful than the Warden’s longsword, because this was how it was in RL, (most of the GoT’s swords, again, can be used by one hand, as opposed to Ice, which was actually re-smithed into two swords in the original novels, but this is another discussion completely, let’s talk GoT another time). Again, since ‘For Honor’ is an online game it is kind of pointless to explain that the claymore is the biggest and baddest sword in the game, because it is all imaginary, (by online games’ standards, anyhow). What are we discussing here, after all? Damage to the hit points of the other PCs?

As for the Highlander himself, I cannot shake away the feeling that he was based, (however partially) on DW’s version of Sir Wallace, also known as Braveheart, when Mel Gibson had played him. (The AWE Me YouTube channel has made a replica claymore from that movie as well, BTW). In DW, Wallace faced against Shaka Zulu, and won…because DW’s cast and crew included – in Zulu’s warchest – a ‘spit of poison’, just as they did with the ninja, (both were DW S1 episodes). Naturally, poison won Zulu no points, and Sir Wallace won by default, if you want to be technical – but yes, his claymore was still cool.

And yes, once again, FH’s crew admit – in the promo video (for the Highlander, here), that the Highlander was not exactly a part of the ‘original’ team Viking; he and his fellows were drawn-in by the war (the original war from S1, maybe?), and now are making their mark on the world….and that, perhaps, brings up to the next topic: there’s bad blood.

There is bad blood between Ubisoft and the players, and there is bad blood between the players themselves. They are divided, and this cannot be good for ‘For Honor’, especially since Ubisoft does not exactly need it, it has other irons in the fire, you know? So far, ‘For Honor’ may not be as wonderful as ‘Injustice 2’ is, for example, but it is still a good game to play. Let us try not to ruin it for ourselves and everyone else.

This is it for this time; see you in the future, soon!