Several years back, Ubisoft's devs decided it would be a great idea to drop the current story - about the Knight, Vikings, and Samurai fighting each other in a three-way war for survival, with the Chinese Wu Lin being an outside group that joined in - and instead focus on diversity. The new/current story is focused on two factions; the first,
Horkos, is an incredibly wealthy cult of warriors from all factions that looks to establish an endless war, led by the all-female Warmongers, a collection of knights based on Apollyon. Resisting them are the
Chimera faction, a collection of warriors from all of the different factions led by the Gryphons, who are always male and use techniques and styles from all factions. Compounding this is Draconite; a mythical alchemical source that pretty much throws all pretext of realism out the window and basically gives people who use it superpowers and magic. Both Horkos and Chimera are basically in a full-fledged war over who can control more of it.
Of course, the shit doesn't stop there; following the release of both Warmonger and Gryphon heroes, the devs released the
Kyoshin, which was a samurai hero that was supposedly always male but looked a bit too feminine at points; basically, a lot of the face models for Kyoshin look like troons. The fact that you could dye their hair a rainbow of colors didn't help with that image...
Of course, the Kyoshin are admittedly a bit tame compared to what came next; the devs really started swinging for the gutters with a 5th new faction, the Outlanders; warriors from places that the devs otherwise couldn't fit into the prior four factions.
The first hero released was the
Pirate, which was an always female collection of Chinese pirate captains that basically got involved because they really wanted to loot the place. Admittedly, not quite the biggest of deal-breakers - they were based on an actual pirate,
Zheng Yi Sao - but the character really does come across as the stereotypical "girlboss" shit that infesting a lot of works these days, and some of the fashion is... questionable, especially with the dyable hair on the second pic:
Following the release of the Pirate, we got a new story; this detailing a Viking jarl - Bolthorn - that
somehow made his way to Egypt, and met/befriended one of the locals, Neferkha, a
Medjay and last of the line of Egyptian kings. The two conversed, with the Medjay revealing an ancient Scarab Bracelet that was supposedly cursed; Bolthron, desperately looking for something to bring prosperity to his people, ended up stealing the bracelet, unleashing some sort of curse that turned his skin black and scaley.
Meet Bolthron, everyone.
Fun fact: according to Ubisoft, this skin is supposed to be super accurate and respectful to the Vikings.
Learning of the theft, Neferkha and a bunch of other Medjay all followed the jarl back to Heathmore to swipe the bracelet back, apparently to "spare the innocent people there of the curse". Naturally, they succeed but decide to stay in Heathmore for a while for... reasons - becoming the second Outlander hero - while Bolthorn is stuck with the cursed skin for the rest of his life, being completely cast out from society.
By the way, this is what the Medjay all look like; you can't adjust the skin color, either. You can choose the race of
every other hero - including Lawbringer, who's skin you can't even see - but Medjay must always be black.
Following this, the story went a bit back to the Horkos faction, who promptly ended up attacking Saudi Arabia. Apparently, following the Calamity 1000 years prior, the place was completely cut off from the outside world; subsequently, the Muslims were able to create a perfectly peaceful and harmonious society, even learning to use Astrology to see into the future, led by a Sultana. Naturally, the Horkos faction wants this ability for themselves, so they send Commander Ravier - a character whose design was deliberately based on a Christian king - and her men to raze the country to the ground, assassinate the Sultana, and steal the Arabian secret to seeing into the future.
Commander Ravier:
Anyways, the raid didn't exactly go unnoticed; the Sultana promptly sent the
Afeera, an all-female group of warriors serving as the royal guard, to head to Heathmore and steal the main treasure Ravier and co. stole: an Astrolabe. Once again, the Afeera succeed in their mission, and promptly start working with the Chimera alliance against the Horkos faction.
Afeera warrior base design:
Of course, the party doesn't stop there; following the disastrous Saudi Arabia campaign, the Horkos cult started looking westward, somehow discovering that there was another continent on the other side of the ocean. They looked to plunder this new land for wealth and resources, so they sent Conquistador Vela and her men to plunder and loot the country.
Upon arrival, Vela and co. discovered the Aztecs, who also survived the calamity and managed to create a similarly peaceful society free from conflict, even assimilating other cultures in the process. Naturally, Vela and her group loot and pillage the entire area, swiping a ton of valuables and even capturing one of the Aztec warriors as a prisoner, before heading back to Heathmoore. Of course, the Aztecs weren't happy about this, so they somehow managed to create enough ships to send a massive chunk of their
Ocelotl warriors over to Heathmoore, looking for revenge. Evidently, I do think they managed to kill Vela and co., but the Aztecs decide to stay in Heathmoore anyway, getting involved in the war for... some reason, Ubi wasn't all that clear on this.
Lastly, as of most recently, the Horkos cult made a push north, into Viking territory, to go after a collection of Chimera warriors that had been in the area. During one of the skirmishes, of the Chimera heads, the Highlander Maddox, made the decision to defect to Horkos after he and his men were trapped and basically left to die. Becoming one of Horkos's best fighters in a short period, Maddox and co. started recruiting the local populace into Horkos, with the whole event both in-universe and out-of-universe questioning concepts of loyalty and whether Maddox and co. were really in the wrong, given the circumstances.
Of course, Ubi didn't want there to be any form of moral greyness in the situation, so they followed up on this by introducing the
Varangian Guard. Said Guard is all-female mercenary group known for being blindly loyal that was hired and led by Maddox's niece (
who somehow managed to learn new fighting style and language and become captain of a group of mercs in about a month) and promptly went after the guy. Maddox and co. were near-instantly defeated, Maddox himself was made out to be a coward, traitor, and idiot by his girlboss niece, and the Varangian Guard became a new Viking hero option.
There are a few other bits I know I'm missing about the story, like the female Inquisitor character who betrayed her order because she felt they were becoming "too extreme" - and was naturally seen in the right for it - but I think I managed to nail most of the main story beats of the current For Honor lore. Anybody know anything I missed, feel free to let me know.
Some claimed this is an anti semitic stereotype, even though it's based of Ebenezer Scrooge 
The character in question
