For Honor adding dedicated servers this season
Don't forget to bow before each round
Rainbow Six Siege might be Ubisoft's rising star in the multiplayer scene, but they're not quite ready to let go of For Honor yet, despite technical troubles and dwindling player-counts.
Due to start this February, the Season 5 update for the game (dramatically named 'Age Of The Wolves'), will bring a lot of tweaks and changes to the game, says Ubi, including some heavily reworked move-sets. Most importantly, though: it'll be adding dedicated server support.
Whatever problems For Honor may have had with balance issues or bugs, the most glaring problem the game has always had was its server architecture. Matchmaking-based play relying on a potentially unreliable host, backed up with even more undeniable host migration should the game decide that its initial pick for host was a poor one.
As detailed in the info-heavy trailer above and this official dev-blog post, all that will be changing at some point in the next few months. The end result should be a more stable, less laggy games. If nothing else, it'll mean fewer disconnections as the game foolishly tries to route the entire match's traffic through one player with NAT issues.
Also important is the changes they're giving the Kensei, Conqueror and Berserker classes, including some major revisions to move-sets, allowing for more complex attack chains. You can see a few of their new tricks and mix-up/flow animations in the gameplay footage above.
Interestingly, it's not just veteran players they're aiming this update at. The Warrior Trials are a series of story-driven offline tutorial scenarios teaching the more complex aspects of the game. You can also set up specific Vs AI match-ups in the arena for practicing against certain situations, as you would in any good fighting game.
Less thrillingly, but par for the course for Ubisoft, there will be a new 'refined' upgrade for already high-tier equipment, giving it an 'extra edge in stats' according to the studio. There's also going to be some tweaks made to XP progression, with the option to trade salvage for a team-wide rewards boost, you included.
It honestly seems like they're poured a ton of love and effort into this update. I hope for the sake of the developers involved, anyone who already owns the game or hopes to buy it that everything works as intended, and the game gets a genuine second chance.
For Honor's Season 5 update, Age of The Wolves, will launch on February 15th. However, the dedicated servers themselves "will arrive later in the season".