For Honor Game Director Tries to Justify High Prices

I, of course, have been a vocal fan of For Honor’s gameplay, even if I find Ubisoft’s marketing decisions to be less than optimal. While I had been optimistic about Ubisoft turning over a new leaf when they reported that their games would have less emphasis on the fee-to-pay elements that defined them in the past, but For Honor’s latest new features have proven themselves  far too expensive for the average player, meaning people would either have to grind for hours for a new emote, or spend something around 10 bucks for the privilege.

Well, in a recent episode of the Warrior’s Den, where Ubisoft developers answer questions and talk about the game, the question of microtransactions came up, and director Damien Keiken had this wholly unsatisfying answer to explain why some simple emotes are so gosh-darn expensive:

"We never had an intention for you to unlock everything in the game. For us, that doesn't really make any sense. It's like in an RPG. You know in World of Warcraft you would never try to unlock all the things for all the characters of the whole game. Our intention, what we forecasted, is most players would play one to three characters,"

He went on to say that he firmly believed that players don’t play more than three characters, and that “they don’t want that.” He would also that that those unlockable cosmetics were seen as sort of “end game” content for players, that many would never get their hands on.

Of course, there are a few problems with that particular line of thought, and players are still rather miffed that they’re expected to only play three characters in a 60+ dollar game, like the world’s most expensive MOBA. I mean, free maps are cool, Ubisoft, but if you’re going to nickle-and-dime us other ways, couldn’t you at least be honest about it?