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The prospect of exploring a new world is often filled with promise. Adventure lies ahead, danger lurks around every corner, and there's the possibility of epic stories with each outing. Anthem looked to offer up such a series of adventures, both crafted by the veteran team at BioWare and by the players themselves. With a lush, open planet to explore aboard an Iron Man-like mechanical suit, the result should have been something special. The idea of taking flight and battling alongside friends promised to be a wondrous gaming experience.
There are four different Javelin suits to choose from which are Ranger, Colossus, Interceptor and Storm. Ranger is balanced between offence and defence. Colossus is the Tank class that can take more damage and taunt enemies. Interceptor is the most agile and plays like a Rogue with devastating melee-combat. Finally Storm is like a Mage and can deal damage from a distance.
The fact of the matter is that Anthem is not the game for me, the Mass Effect fan longing for another sprawling story-driven epic. There are things that I inarguably love about Anthem, and there is a possibility that future patches could solve some of my minor annoyances with quest flow and story progress. But some design problems with Anthem are bigger than a patch.
Anthem - and you would be forgiven for not realising this, as the game itself does not appear to fully understand it - is not really about guns at all. They're there, you can shoot them and collect them, but they are not the stars of the show. These are the Javelins, the four mech suits you collect over the course of the game, in the order of your choosing, which serve as Anthem's character classes. They're all capable of rocket-propelled flight, and they all have unique abilities - two 'gear' slots, a melee attack, an ultimate and a combo effect - that are far more effective and more important to the combat than the guns.
Those facial animations were likely an issue of scope. Andromeda was a proper RPG with hundreds of thousands of voice lines and branching paths. The budget went elsewhere. In Anthem, all the money has been pumped into making sure it can’t be mocked by gifs. It looks phenomenal and the performance capture is some of the best I’ve seen. It’s also lacking any substance.
There is more to Anthem than meets the eye. It just hasn’t been fully realized yet. Hopefully, BioWare’s plans for the game’s future - as detailed in their 90-day roadmap - will help bring the game to where we all expected it to be by now. But until that happens, you are probably better off continuing to spend time in EA’s more successful February release, Apex Legends. Finally, to enjoy all the features in the game, players can from Mmocs at a reasonable price.
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