For Honor season 2 launches new maps and classes
Visit the Temple Garden
Ubisoft's staborama For Honor [official site] has kicked off its second season of competitive play with an update adding two new maps and, initially only for season pass holders, two new characters. The sneaky Shinobi and stompy Centurion will become available to other players on May 23rd, but all stabmen are invited today to murder in the new Temple Garden and Forge levels. Alongside all this is a big ol' update with changes including rebalancing gear, fixing bugs, and making levelling faster.
The Shinobi is a zippy Assassin sort armed with scythes on a chain, which can be swung from a distance to create openings for close-range slicing. The Centurion is a Vanguard/Assassin hybrid with a gladius and some knock-down moves. Folks who own the season pass unlock them instantly today, while digiplebs will need to wait until May 23rd then unlock them with the 'Steel' imagicoins earned by playing.
As for new maps, here's a peek at Forge:
And Temple Garden is a pretty one even in the drab colour palette of For Honor:
Perhaps the major feature of the accompanying update is a rebalancing of gear. Ubi have improved base and Common-tier gear, made upgrading gear cheaper, and made other tweaks. The dev team comment:
"Players advising each other on gear strategies always said the same thing: Save your steel for Heroic gear. This means that many players saw very little gear progression until they got their first hero up to Reputation 3. Something that takes a long time. So by making the curve steeper at the low end and flatter at the top, we hope that players will see it as valuable to buy and craft gear of all rarities."
The update also increases XP gain from matches, tweaks character balance, fixes bugs, and more. Check out the V1.07 patch notes for full details on everything.