As I’m sure you all have heard by now, Ubisoft held a closed alpha for For Honor over the weekend. I honestly don’t know how many people participated in the alpha, but it was enough that Blake and I didn’t have issues finding compatriots and opponents for any match. Yes, I dragged Blake in with me for the alpha, because I figured it was dangerous to go alone. Even though I have played the game twice, once at E3 two years ago and at PAX West, but I still didn’t want to go into the alpha without a buddy. As I said in my PAX West preview, teamwork is key, and it was thanks to Blake and I constantly chatting and communicating with one another our strategies that we didn’t do any worse. I am saying worse, because I’ll never claim we performed well. But we had fun flailing around, even when we lost a match. Now I’m wishing we had a flail in our arsenal. Oh well. Maybe we can unlock it when the full game releases. 
Introducing Brawls
At PAX West, Ubisoft revealed the Duel mode for multiplayer, which pits players one on one in a very small, confined area. In the closed alpha, a new mode was unlocked for us to sample called “Brawls.” I jumped into this first to see exactly what it was and it didn’t take long before I jumped back out again. Brawls pit two on two, but the players are separated into duels. The idea is that whoever wins the first duel will jump into a second one, or potentially team up on a hapless player...