It doesn't seem terribly difficult, which has been the problem with previous Assassin's Creed combat systems.
The promise of Assassin's Creed 1 was that you could handle yourself in a 1 v 1 fight, or maybe even 1 v 2, but 1 v 3 was a losing battle you should run from. But countering meant that no amount of enemies was ever really a threat.
To that end I think that For Honor's combat system would be ideal. It's a shame they couldn't just pilfer that.
I don't think that's been very true, in every AC.
In AC1 if you encountered a templar in a crowd, the risk of dying was a real possibility.
and for example Unity got punishing to a fault, where high level enemies could one shot you in an instant (which was bad, since the game performed so bad, that nailing parries was a lucky shot).
So the series, for better or worse, can be hard when it wants to: to problem is, is it fun? And so far, i don't think the combat in AC as ever been particularly fun.
At least the stealth got somewhat decent in Syndicate, but the combat was always serviceable to shit.
I'm very skeptical about this, it seems to me like they took all the annoying, grindy shit from games like Witcher 3, and crammed into the AC formula thinking it would work to make it last even longer (really, was length ever a problem for AC?) but of course i give them the benefit of the doubt, and i'll keep an open mind.
It looks gorgeous and i love the setting, at least.