For Honor NAT Type Strict to Open Networking setup

Playing For Honor multiplayer is an exhilarating experience, but having NAT Strict network issues, that affect joining matches, can really hamper your enjoyment. During my experience with the For Honor closed alpha I initially had this problem and joining matches took forever or would completely fail.
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There is hope for all of you out there having their network connection recognized as NAT Strict (which means you can connect only to people whose NAT status is Open and if your friends are also NAT strict you can’t play with them), but you will have to do some more complicated tech stuff to get NAT Open or at least get NAT Moderate status. This should also provide some help to those of you having the NAT Unknown issue and generally help with disconnection error codes like 1694332663, 1088431700, 3397432595 and 2904484995.

for honor nat strict to nat open
Here’s a breakdown of NAT statuses. Strict can only connect to NAT Open players; Moderate can connect to other Moderate and Open; NAT Open can connect to everyone.

There are two things you will have to look at when trying to get better connectivity in For Honor. One is setting up your internet router and the other is potentially setting up your firewall software. I recommend you do one change first, then check if the NAT situation improved and then do additional steps if needed. There also might be a possibility that there is nothing you can do and that your internet provider is doing some port blocking that you can’t avoid. With hopes that this is not the case I will go into setting up your internet router for port forwarding first, because when I did that I managed to get NAT Open status.

UPDATE: Security-wise the best thing for you to do would be to enable uPNP on your router first. Reset the router after the change and start the game anew. If this opens up your NAT, you are done. If that does not work, try steps bellow to open up ports for the game on your router. IF that does not work try setting up DMZ. IF that does not work try seeing if disabling your firewall helps. If none of these work you probably have NAT enabled at your internet provider and most likely you won’t be able to do anything about your setup. (to see if you have a public IP assigned or private, which is a sign of NAT enabled on your internet provider, type into google “What is my IP”. If the top result begins with 192.168.x.x or 10.0.x.x or 172.16.x.x than your internet provider has protections on its side and nothing you do on your router will help).

Opening Router Ports to have For Honor NAT Open

NOTE: This is taking into account PC version of the game. You might have to open the same ports for your XBOX One an PS4 as well, but the guide was written with PC users in mind. For XBOX Live users you might want to open port 3074 (try UDP, but if that doesn’t work add TCP as well) (thanks to Alex in comments for pointing this out).For Honor requires the following ports to be opened to function properly:

Uplay PC:
TCP: 13000, 13005, 13200, 14000, 14001, 14008, 14020, 14021, 14022, 14023 and 14024 Game Ports:
Inbound UDP: 3075

NOTE: Ubisoft recommends you open ports 80 and 443, but that is quite unsafe. These are ports for internet page communication and safe https communication. There should be no need to do this, but if everything else fails try opening these as well. (thanks to kilyan in the comments for pointing this out)

What does this mean? You need to setup your router so that all network traffic from the internet on the ports listed above is sent directly to your computer. You need to access your router. Most routers or internet modems can be accessed via your web browser by typing one of the following addresses: 192.168.0.1, 10.0.0.1, 192.168.1.1. It should ask you for a username and password (usually default values are username: admin password: admin but it depends on the manufacturer and you should check your router manual). Next you need to find a settings page in your router that lets you setup something that is usually called “Virtual Servers”. In it you can Add rules that setup port you want to forward (or a whole range of ports) and to what IP you want to forward traffic to. IP you are looking for is the IP of your computer or console on the LAN. To find what IP you have you need to go to Control Panel > Network and Internet > Network and Sharing Centre > click on Change Adapter settings link in the left side of the window > Right click your internet adapter and click on status. Under IPv4 you should see your IP.

You might have to setup your router to assign a static local IP to your For Honor computer or console. There’s a very helpful website that can help you with the whole port opening/forwarding part of the setup. called PortForward.com. You should find instructions on how to setup a static IP for your computer and port forwarding instructions for hundreds of different router devices. Short guide on what needs to be done is the following:
  • Access your router via web interface
  • Find Virtual Services section and forward internet traffic for ports listed above to the IP of your computer
  • You’ll probably have to setup your router so it gives a Static IP for your PC
After doing this fire up For Honor and see if this improved your NAT status. If it did not there are two more things you can do on the router.
  1. If your router supports it you can add your computer’s IP to the DMZ. This is a “demilitarized zone” and this will avoid all of the router’s built in defenses (like firewall) and just sent all the traffic to that computer unfiltered. IF this does not help your NAT status make sure you remove your computer from the DMZ afterwards, because I see it as a security risk.
  2. Some people suggest Turning on uPnP support in your router. This did nothing for me, but it doesn’t hurt to try

UPDATE: kilyan in the comments suggests that opening up uPNP in his router helped him get open NAT. As I said, for me it did nothing, but other routers might behave better this way and it removes the need for dangerous port opening as described above.

If you did all these and restarted the game and your NAT is still strict you should check your firewall software.

Setting up firewall software to make For Honor NAT open

I had a problem with my antivirus/firewall software not letting For Honor internet connections happen even after I opened my ports. It showed NAT open in the game, but I couldn’t connect to any matches. Most modern antivirus computer solutions include some form of Internet security as well – usually a firewall. I have ESET Smart Security and it still blocked For Honor. You can disable your firewall to see if that helps you connect to other people. This opens up your computer to some attacks from the internet, but see if that is a problem. Also, most modern firewall and antivirus software have exceptions you can create for an application. Try and add an exception for For Honor application to allow all internet traffic to it. Sometimes these are call rules. Your antivirus software might also have gaming mode you can enable manually. Try doing this as well and see if the problem goes away.

For me I had to disable additional antivirus software features like Network attack protection and Botnet protection. These are special features in ESET antivirus and might not be present in your software.

Even if you disable your custom software firewall Windows firewall can kick in. If you still have connection issues when you disable your main firewall try disabling Windows Firewall. To do this click the Start button icon, and then clicking Control Panel. In the search box, type firewall, and then click Windows Firewall. In the left pane, click Turn Windows Firewall off. If you’re prompted for an administrator password or confirmation, type the password or provide confirmation. Make sure you turn all these back on once you finish playing For Honor.

I hope these tips helped you have NAT Open type of connection and that you can get into multiplayers matches in For Honor with ease. I’ll try and help with any questions you might have so leave a comment at the bottom if you still have issues.

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Author Serge profile picture
Having games be part of his life since Commodore 64 it was only natural that Serge co-founded GosuNoob.com. With every new game he travels from being the Noob to being Gosu. Whether he does coding or editorial work on the website he is still amazed by the fact that gaming is what he does for living.

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