No one would ever accuse For Honor director Jason VandenBerghe of being hard to notice. Looking past his stature and Viking-style beard, VandenBerghe retains a presence that commands attention. Whenever he comes out to talk about his newest weapon-combat game, he speaks with a full-throated enthusiasm that convinces you to share in every bit of the same spirit. The man who helmed Red Steel 2 is out to show the world how videogames should be playing with sharp objects.
“I actually got the idea when I was learning German Longsword,” explained VandenBerghe. This style of unarmored fencing was based around the idea of being swift with a large weapon, placing paramount importance on reading your opponent to take the advantage. “As I was walking home one day, I started to wonder how you could apply these moves to a videogame controller, and how I could apply them to the right analog stick.” After years of pitching the idea to anyone at Ubisoft who would listen, VandenBerghe was given the chance to work with a team that could help him realize his dream weapon game.
For Honor is Ubisoft’s big-budget attempt at ushering VandenBerghe’s concepts to fruition. From the start, he and his team focused on how to recreate the tension and rhythm of a real swordfight. “We knew, if this idea was going to succeed, it would have to start as a multiplayer game. Trying to make a single-player game and make a multiplayer game out of it doesn’t work,” VandenBerghe mused. “When you start a project, you never really know what you’re going to get.”
As is true of all game development, the creation of For Honor was the result of a thousand smaller decisions that built up over years to create a single whole. As the game started rolling forward, the team had to start wondering what genre the game falls into, and were unable to come up with a complete consensus.
“I like ‘Shooter with Swords,’ but I might be alone in that,” VandenBerghe said. “I do think it is a fusion game, but even that isn’t totally defined. But it is a lot like a fighting game, in that it’s trying to bring that core experience of melee combat to the player.” But likening For Honor to a fighting game means it might also need to be tweaked and balanced like a fighting game, which the team is anticipating for the future.
“We have different problems than fighting games, and it’s a lot more spread-out, but that’s part of the challenge,” VandenBerghe said.
