What do you get when you bring together the casts of The Walking Dead and Game of Thrones along with fighters from the UFC? A whole lot of death and destruction … at least when it comes to them playing the new Ubisoft game For Honor, which appropriately enough pits three factions of warriors against each other in ancient battlefield combat. The open beta just kicked off on February 9th, and to celebrate Ubisoft decided to see how the different actors and athletes would fare in the world of Knights, Vikings, and Samurai.
Representing Game of Thrones: Jason Mamoa, the greatest Khal there ever was, and Alfie Allen, who represented House Greyjoy. They were teamed up with Nerdist’s Jessica Chobot and Twitch streamer Sodapoppin. The Walking Dead‘s Lauren Cohan is no stranger to cleaving skulls, and UFC flyweight champion Demetrious Johnson is pretty skilled when it comes to video games too. They were teamed with Nerdist’s Dan Casey and YouTuber StoneMountain64.
Things kicked off with Mamoa and Allen on the Samurai faction, while Cohan and Johnson represented the Knights. As you’d expect, Jason Mamoa got right into the thick of things, wiping out huge swaths of the opposing faction before beginning to stalk the other players. But it was Alfie Allen that ended up putting fear into the hearts of everyone he faced.
“It [For Honor] definitely took me back to when I had to do sword fighting with Game of Thrones,” Allen said. “Just how real the fighting was in the game… the technique in terms of parrying and blocking. It’s not like you’re just pressing buttons.”
Allen wasn’t the only one impressed by the game’s realism. Demetrious Johnson also noticed a lot of tactical aspects in For Honor that he experiences in the Octagon.
“The movement in For Honor is pretty on point,” Johnson said. “Me being a mixed martial arts fighter and world champion, controlling the range, the distance and the stamina… it’s pretty spot on.”
It’s also just a bloody good time.
“I got to finish thrashing Jason Mamoa after being killed seven times by Alfie Allen,” Lauren Cohan said at the end of her gaming session. “So it’s a good day, it’s just a normal day.”
The open beta is available on PS4, Xbox One, and PC right now, with the full release arriving on February 14th, Valentine’s Day. As far as Lauren Cohan is concerned, that works out just fine.
“I think that For Honor is possibly the most romantic way to spend Valentine’s Day!” she said with a laugh.
