Mordhau or For Honor?

Games based on melee combat have been around for a long time, but there are some games which influence the genre more than others. Dark Messiah: Might and Magic managed to create an first person game with a deep (at the time) melee combat system with kicks and combos. Mount and Blade did the same in third person.

Both Mordhau and For Honor seems to be the logical next step in the evolution of this niche. While each game is focused on melee combat with medieval themes, they are only similar on the surface.

Perspective

Mordhau features detailed models just waiting to be dismembered.

The most obvious difference is the fact that Mordhau is first-person, while For Honor is third-person. This can have a huge impact on the gameplay.

When playing For Honor, your view will be the broad backside of your tough fighter as he approaches the battlefield and dances around the opponent. This gives the player more situational awareness, which helps the player deal with enemies that sneak up on dueling combatants.

In Mordhau you play in a more personal perspective, looking out from behind the helmet of your soldier. While this limits your field of view, the combat feels more visceral and realistic. As the game relies more on accurate strikes and swings, this view mode helps to give you that edge(pun intended) that you need to behead your enemies.

The battlefield

This breathtaking scene is from For Honor.

While this is a broad term as both games(or in the case of Mordhau, will) feature a wide selection of different maps. The difference is in the size and interactive nature of the maps.

In multiplayer, For Honor can support 8 players at once and there are tons of bots that are just there as meatshields. This allows for smaller and more focused maps where players hack their way through scores of little npcs before quickly finding each other and fighting.

Mordhau, on the other hand, will feature 64 player maps and fully fledges sieges. While the developers already stated that there will be duel and smaller game modes, the most interesting part is the 64 player mode (at least for me). These maps will have siege engines, destructible gates, and bridges and defensive structures that are activatable, in the spirit of Chivalry.

The Combat system

The small minions with you are there to make you feel like you are in a huge battle.

For honor plays more like a fighting game, so if you are familiar with those, you will get the hang of it. The combat has three attack directions, left, right, and top. You can swing in three directions and the person defending have to block in the right direction to avoid high damage.

Other than that you can perform special moves and combos that differ depending on the class you play. While this is less fluid than the system Mordhau uses, it provides a frame for competitive duels where the skill ceiling is high but the number of basic moves are still low.

Mordhau improves upon the formula of Chivalry. The biggest difference is the fact that you are no longer limited to certain routers your sword can take. While you could manipulate your swings in Chivalry by moving your torso in different directions, this could only get you so far. In Mordhau while you push the attack button you can move your mouse in any direction and the sword follows that; this sandbox way of fighting makes the game very unique.

In Mordhau you can gut your opponent in 240 different angles.

Differences aside, if you crave a melee combat game, then you live in exciting times with the coming release of both Mordhau and Mirage: Arcane Warfare.

While you wait for these you can play For Honor or Chivalry, and dismember a few friends.