Okay, so.

I've decided, after more than 4000 hours of in-game time, that I'll finally change my joke of a review to something more sophisticated.

Before I start, I have to say, after everything I went through with this game, either good or bad things, I haven't changed my opinion about it being my most favorite game of all time to this very day.

BUT,
enough about my personal view, I'll be as honest and as neutral as possible. After all these years of joy and struggle with this splendid title by Ubisoft I've come to a conclussion that I have hands down experienced EVERYTHING this game has and has had to offer.

I am going to describe my journey in the points below:

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PROS:


✔️Fairly frequent updates

✔️Even more fun with friends

✔️In-game events and crossovers

✔️Option to play either PvP or PvAI (both playable with friends)

✔️Replayability of this game is top notch and it won't bore you quickly

✔️Has a decently long campaign which can be played with an additional friend or solo

✔️A lot of popular gamemodes to choose from (Capture the point, Deathmatch, Duel...)

✔️Once you learn the base game properly, with enough dedication, it's not hard to master it

✔️A lot of training modes and combat-educational challenges to help you get into the game

✔️This game is a one-of-its-kind type of game, you won't find anything similar out there. Theme wise? Maybe. Gameplay wise? Nope

✔️Nothing aside of the Battle-pass(es) and a single playable gamemode is Pay-Walled behind real-life currency. 90% of the game's contents can be bought with in-game currency (steel)

✔️Customization in this game is just mesmerizing. It isn't as in depth as for example Mordhau, but you can still change your skin tone, gender (on gender-unlocked character), material of your armor, different pieces of armor, custom executions, emotes... you get the idea, it definitelly doesn't lack in customization

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CONS:


❌Out of all the games I've ever played, this one is the most rage-inducing of them all. So if you have a temper and/or fragile nerves, this game isn't for you

❌Matchmaking times can extend to a larger amount of minutes on less populated gamemodes

❌Can become a grind-fest if you want to get a fair amount of cosmetics for your hero(es)

❌If you don't have a solid net, expect to be disconnected from the servers fairly often

❌Less fun to play solo ; with randoms

❌Very hard to learn

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SIDE NOTES:


🔶You can find 1v1, 2v2 and 4v4 modes in this game.

🔶The game offers Battle-passes (purchasable with real money) and the ability to buy in-game currency (steel) for real money. But once again, nothing aside of a single gamemode and the aforementioned battle-passes is pay-walled

🔶This game also has a competitive scene, if you want to get the most out of it, definitely visit r/CompetitiveForHonor sub-reddit for advanced tips and tricks

🔶It requires good reflexes, even though the game is aiming more towards being read-based than reaction-based, you still need solid reflexes and keep calm / not panic easily under pressure

🔶DON'T BUY THE STARTER EDITION. I can't stress this enough. If you don't want to regret it in the future (if the game catches your interest you and you start playing it on regular basis). Everything is overpriced in this edition of the game and you'll be happy if you can afford the base heroes, not mentioning the cosmetics if you want some customization. Really, just buy the standard edition of the game on a third-party reselling site for less than 10 bucks or wait for a sale

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Graphics: 9/10
Gameplay: 7.5/10
Singleplayer: 6/10
Multiplayer (with friends): 7.5/10
Multiplayer (with randoms/bots): 5.5/10
Soundtrack: 8.5/10
Optimization: 6/10
Replayability: 10/10

Overal: 7.5/10
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And that pretty much sums it. It's not perfect but hell, it is an addictive game that you won't get bored of anytime soon so what are you waiting for :)

UPDATED: 2nd of December 2021 ; Styling

I am not a very good review writer but I've decided to write this. Mostly because the game deserves it.

It shares the same path and story as For Honor. Huge at the launch, hated by many a few weeks after, loses 90% of its playerbase almost immediately, I begin to love it. Here we go again.

This game made it to my most played games very quickly and I still can't get enough of it. Here's my overview of the game distributed into the points below.

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PROS:


✔️Good graphics

✔️Huge replayability

✔️Way more fun with friends

✔️Roadmap full of content for the upcoming months

✔️Straight forward gameplay moderately easy to learn

✔️Interesting and actually achievable achievements to get

✔️Great cosmetic rewards, especially after beating it on the hardest difficulty

✔️Has a lengthy campaign with various stages and nonrepetitive gameplay (at least to me)

✔️8 characters that you get for free at the beginning, each offering a unique buff, team-based-bonus and starting weapons

✔️Available customization of your weapons with various attachments offering bonuses that you find throughout the levels

✔️Gunplay & movement is so on point I felt like playing a competitive shooter, really well done for "just" a zombie killing game

✔️Even if mostly advertised as a PvE shooter, it has an interesting PvP mode with fluid mechanics where you play as the special zombie classes vs player survivors

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CONS:


❌The servers are a mess, I tend to lag even when hosting (I have a really fast net)

❌The gore is mediocre. Not bad but Left4Dead, a decade old game, did it twice as good

❌Horrible to play with randoms, the lack of communication and amount of tunnel-visioned people is astounding

❌Aside of a certain level with a jukebox full of licensed real world tracks, the OST in this game is not very catchy/good

❌Broken AI (survivors), ranging from Aimbotting sentry guns (rare case) to innefficient toddlers with BB guns and broken pathfinding

❌(ALREADY FIXED) The enemy-spawning system is utterly broken from time to time, resulting in an unfair carnage of specials at a single chokepoint (up to 6 specials in a total area of 15 square meters at the same time), we were told this got fixed. Can confirm it was NOT fixed yet

❌(ALREADY FIXED) Not a newbie / casual player friendly game. The hardest difficulty (Nightmare) needs to be tweaked. At this state it is a sh*tfest and unfun to beat without using a meta like speedrunning or glitching (grenade duping). Almost impossible to beat by playing -normal- and without a full team of super focused people

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SIDE NOTES:


🔶Even though the game is easy to learn, it's hard to master

🔶This game is very RNG based, usually not in a favor of the players, occasionally making a run borderline unbeatable on the harder difficulties

🔶There is a great official B4B Discord for people that Look for Groups so in case you don't want to play alone, you won't have trouble finding buddies there (for any difficulty)

🔶Decently big arsenal of weapons, at least two weapons from each category (SMGs, ARs, Shotguns...). There are 5 melee weapons which are unfortunately leaning more towards a lacklustre, but a melee rework is confirmed and coming later on so this point might change in the future

🔶B4B has a decent story which is unfortunately not delivered well, or rather - it's hard to deliver, since it's mostly via radio dialogues and a few cutscenes. Most of the players seem to just care about the point-and-shoot aspect in this game, almost no one pays attention what actually happens around them, they just see stuff to shoot. Played it with a lot of friends, none seemed to actually catch on what's happening. So I am putting this in a neutral zone, rather than a flaw since both sides are to blame

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Graphics: 7.5/10
Gameplay: 8/10
Singleplayer: -
Multiplayer (with friends): 9/10
Multiplayer (with randoms/bots): 3/10
Soundtrack: 4/10
Optimization: 7/10
Replayability: 10/10

Overal: 7.5/10
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Overally - The campaign can be played over and over again and you still can't get enough. It gives you this weird -drive- that pushes you forward, making you want to do all the achievements while keeping you feeling rewarded for even the smallest ones. Even if it's not the most popular zombie slasher game out there, it deserves a special place in my heart.

UPDATED: 21th of December 2021 ; Wording, Changed some points because they were fixed/patched