Ubisoft's melee combat focused action game, For Honor, released last month after breaking the record for the largest beta in Ubisoft's history.
The game was received rather well at launch. In Wccftech's review (8/10), Dave praised it for big production values and great combat while noting that server instability was presently an issue.
However, there is another issue that's causing several gamers to lose interest in For Honor - the game's implementation of microtransactions. Recently, Reddit user bystander007 posted some interesting math facts on how much it would take to unlock everything that's in For Honor at launch between Emotes, Executions, Effects, Outfits, and Ornaments.
Apparently, the average hero requires 91500 Steel (the game's currency) to unlock everything. Since there are twelve heroes overall, the total Steel required to unlock everything for all of them is 1,098,000.
If you want to buy Steel with real money, that's 7.32x150,000 (the amount of Steel unlocked with the $100 packs). Basically, the unlocks are worth $732.
Of course, there's also the option to earn all of these unlocks simply by playing the game. However, it seems like this really isn't a viable option for casual players.
Assuming 1-2 daily hours of playtime for 5-7 days per week, it would take players 915 days or two and a half years - but by then, Ubisoft could have released a sequel already.
More dedicated For Honor players can do it more quickly, but there's a limit to grinding Steel since the system was designed to reward first and foremost about two hours every day. They could earn up to 23550 Steel in a week, but even so to unlock everything they'd have to play 326 days - almost a full year.
Unlocking everything isn't obligatory, of course, but this still seems like an inordinate amount of time to spend in a game. Perhaps the developers can take a cue from Ubisoft Massive, which made great improvements in properly rewarding The Division players for doing activities over time.
Are you still playing For Honor? What do you think of this system of microtransactions?
About the author: With over two decades of experience in gaming journalism, Alessio Palumbo has led the gaming vertical at Wccftech since August 2015. He started working at a young age for Italian websites like Everyeye.it, Gamestar.it, Nextgame.it, and Multiplayer.it before kickstarting the indie English-language publication Worlds Factory as its founder and Editor in Chief. In the last decade, he has coordinated the overall output of Wccftech's gaming section, managed PR relations, assigned reviews, produced daily news coverage, edited gaming content as needed, and delivered game reviews. Arguably, his trademark content is the long series of exclusive developer interviews that have been cited by Wikipedia and by the biggest news media and gaming publications. His passion for technology also makes him knowledgeable when it comes to gaming hardware and tech. His favorite genres include RPGs, MMORPGs, and action/adventure games.
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