Why For Honor's Focus on Diversity Is So Important

To For Honor director Jason Vandenberghe and the rest of the team at Ubisoft Montreal playing as the warrior that you want to be is important. That's why players can choose which gender and race they want to battle as, Vandenberghe told GameSpot.

"This game isn't about us creating characters and imposing them on you," Vandenberghe explained. "This game is about you. And so what kind of warrior are you? You can change the skin color of your Vikings, too. You want to have a black Viking? Knock yourself out. It's who you are. I want you to be able to be in that game."

Vandenberghe added that letting players choose who they want to play as has "been the core value of the team" since day one. In fact, there are 12 heroes in total, and when it comes to gender, "it's 50/50 all the way across."

"Each faction has four heroes each," Vandenberghe said. "In each faction there are two heroes that are dual gender, male or female, and then there's one hero that is male only and one hero that is female only.

"I hope that people pick up on how much diversity there is in this game, both in terms of your ability to customize and how much choice you have in all the styles," he continued. "And it's really a game for everybody; it really is. It's so easy for people to say, 'Oh, it couldn't be true, they couldn't have full gender representation and different ethnicities in a game like this.' So we put a lot of time and effort into that."