Ubisoft plans to introduce a more formal ranked system to For Honor, and the publisher will also add 1 v 1 tournament duels to the game. The public test for these new features will begin on June 29 for PC players only and it will last until July 4. After the public test, the developers plan to bring the new game mode to all platforms in a formal update, according to a post on the Ubisoft Blog.
The following quote comes from Damien Kieken, the game director for For Honor:
Tournaments and competitive play have been part of the team’s vision for the game since the beginning of its development. The team has worked hard in order to be able to implement this feature, and now the feature is near completion. We feel it is time to have it tested by our players. We want to make sure everything works as intended, but also take into account players’ feedback before its release. The Public Test will allow the team to do that.First, let's start with the new ranked features. According to the blog post, all players who want to partake in competitive play will need to play through 20 qualifying Duel matches. Then, the player will be put into one of five tiers: Bronze, Silver, Gold, Platinum, and Diamond. Each tier will also have five subdivisions, that way you are matched with people even closer to your own skill rating.
Of course, just because you are put into a certain tier at the beginning of a season, that doesn't mean you are stuck there forever. Just like in other games with competitive play, you can climb upward (or fall downward) through the tiers if you win (or lose) enough matches.
This is where the duel tournaments come into play, as this is currently the only way that you can climb through the ranks. In the blog post, the the developers did not discuss the possibility of any other game modes coming to competitive play. For now.
The tournaments themselves work just like tournaments in other games. First, each player must play 3 qualifying matches to determine their seed for that specific tournament. Then, all the players move on to a single-elimination playoff phase where the best seeded players play the worst seeded ones. That continues through the bracket until there is only one person remaining.
However, you don't need to win in order to receive rewards. All players receive some loot, but those who last longer in the bracket will obviously get more loot than others.
Another important thing to note about duel tournaments is the fact that they are always available. You don't need to register ahead of time or anything like that. You simply find the game mode on the multiplayer map, just like you would with any other multiplayer game mode in For Honor, and then the game will begin matchmaking for you until there are enough players.
The blog post does state that matchmaking will take longer for duel tournaments than for other modes because the game has to find a lot more players for you to go against, and those players have to be close to your skill rating. Also, each tournament is a 30 to 90-minute commitment, according to the blog post. This is because once you start the tournament, you have to continue playing in it until you lose in the playoff phase. While the developers didn't mention any penalties for leaving early, I imagine there will be some form of punishment once this game mode officially launches after the PTR is over.
As for the public test itself, it will be open only to PC players from June 29 to July 4. Since this is just a test, all progress made during this time will be lost after July 4th and none of it will be carried over when the game mode officially launches sometime after the PTR ends. The developers also stated that they will be taking player feedback through the For Honor forum, which you can find here.