For Honor takes the concept of a crossover to a whole new level, creating a hack-and-slash title that lets players throw vikings, samurai and medieval knights against each other in a clash that realistically would never happen – but that shouldn’t stand in the way of some awesome action, right? We went hands-on with the single-player campaign at E3 this year to see just how the bone-crushing and limb-severing plays out in the title.

The demo involved a single player mission which saw the player defending their castle as it’s being attacked by a band of knights. Graphically, the game is very impressive from a pure technical standpoint, as the armor on each knight is incredibly detailed, as is the castle environment around you. It really is a bloody pretty game to look at.

The combat system is slow and deliberate, and in a way similar to Dark Souls, where small mistakes can end up becoming particularly punishing. The main thrust of the system relies upon positioning. You are able to take three different stances while targeting an enemy – up, right and left. Simple directions, but they are quite important, as you block an attack by matching your stance to the same one the enemy is attacking from. For instance, matching a right attack with a right block. Following the same logic, to successfully attack an enemy, you need to hit them from a stance that they are not currently in – a left attack through a right block, for instance.

In terms of controls, you have access to strong and light attacks. Strong attacks of course do more damage but take longer and are therefore easier to see coming and block. Light attacks are quicker but will only shave off a little damage at a time. Balancing between the two is the key to victory, and overall the combat system feels very strategic, well balanced and fair. Comparing it once again to Dark Souls, it feels like an easier system to adapt to overall, while also providing a good level of challenge and remaining fair to the player.

Your character also has the ability to use ‘feats’ which you pick up during levels. In the E3 demo, these were single use healing spells that you could use in battle to regain some health. The demo featured three different enemies, each with their own attack patterns, which was a fairly small number honestly, even for a small demo. One concern is that the variety of enemies could be an issue when stretched out over the entirety of a whole game.

However, we came away thinking that For Honor is pretty damn good. It looks beautiful, has a neat concept and the gameplay was actually surprisingly easy to understand and fun to play. The game is set to be released on PS4, Xbox One and PC on Valentine’s Day (14 February, 2017) – just the gift for your significant other.