Ubisoft's medieval massacre simulator For Honor will go into closed beta in January 2017, giving gamers around the world the opportunity to finally find out what happens when a Viking, a Knight, and a Samurai walk into a bar. Ubi also dropped the first details about the Faction War metagame, a trio of videos for the new Shugoki, Warlord, and Peacekeeper classes, and a single-player campaign trailer that reveals how all this unpleasantness came about.

Peacekeepers are basically members of the Assassin Order, dual-wielding short swords and daggers, and surviving through speed and dexterity rather than heavy armor and muscle. Shugoki are the exact opposite of that: Massive, inhumanly strong and tough, and armed with what is basically a small tree with spikes. Warlords are another imposing heavy class, equipped with shields "as versatile as they are strong."

Faction War is a "persistent cross-platform conflict" between the Knight, Viking, and Samurai factions, whose outcome is determined by every battle that takes place in the world of multiplayer For Honor. Players will pledge allegiance to one of the three factions (but can still play as any of the others), and then earn War Assets based on their performance that can be deployed to conquer and defend territories. Wars will run for ten-week seasons, after which all players will receive rewards based on their faction's rank. At the end of the season, everything resets and, after an off-season, starts over again. War never changes, as they say.

Registrations for the For Honor closed beta can be made at forhonorgame.com/war. Class trailers are below, and be sure to hit up our new hands-on preview, which actually looks quite promising: The solo campaign mode might not be a big hook, but the multiplayer battles sound like they could be a lot of fun.

Update: The post originally stated that the January beta will be open. It will in fact be a closed beta.