Anthem is a game I love for all the right reasons but I don’t know if it can keep my attention for long. I still need some commitment from the developers before I can say “Anthem is a keeper!” Anthem had a great E3 trailer but the product that has been released last week was far away from the footage we’ve seen. Anthem spoke to so many of us by showing a trailer with awesome graphics, a very cool flight mechanic, living world happenings and an interesting plot to tell. However, the released version of this Utopian game has still some work to do. It’s a game that can soar high but it’s catching too much turbulence to overcome its javelin own internal system failures.
Anthem’s story puts you in the body of a freelancer that has access to a mech-suit called Javelin. It’s your job to accept contracts, put in the work and claim your rewards. Even though the shooting runs through your veins, it’s obvious that things are about to change. The world of Anthem is filled with relics that have been created by the godlike race “The Shapers”. These relics are filled with tremendous power that can terraform the world around them instantly: spawning dangerously mutated creatures, adapt vegetation, … It’s obvious that these relics hold the secrets of life but if these relics fall into the wrong hands, this power may be harnessed to do some evil. As a survivor of the cataclysm which is named “The Heart of Rage”. This event went bad but your experience is vital to face an even greater enemy than all of these mutated shaped creatures combined. So suit up and take flight, Pilot!
Anthem does 2 things right: the flight mechanics and the graphical side of the game. If you ever had a fantasy about flying high in the sky just like Iron Man, well this is the perfect game to get that sense of immersion. The game looks amazing with all of the vegetation, lighting effects and character models. The world offers a great deal of exploration when you’re going into “free mode”, the world has been designed with verticality in the focus. The game offers a great sandbox that can be explored from top to bottom. However, the world does feel a bit empty. Even though the game offers a handful of open world missions, it’s not as filled as the “living world” section in Guild Wars 2 for example. The game lacks a bit of variety when it comes to these world events. You’re often searching for missing links, killing enemies, capturing area’s and destroying top-tier monsters. While I enjoyed the events, they haven’t created a groundbreaking event. With all of these loot shooters around, they could have easily implemented and improved some of these existing events and add a bit of an extra touch. Implementing standard events aren’t necessarily a bad thing, but I do feel like they could have gone a couple of miles further with this game. For example, there’s no event that tests your skills in aerial combat or uses this verticality. If you’re a developer and you’ve created this open world with the focus on highs and lows, why not make events that use this “focus” and make something different. The design of the enemies themselves are uninspired and add nothing new to the table. As for the AI, they’re fairly stupid. They are just coming towards you and start shooting without any kind of strategy. Also, where are the enemies who use grapple hooks or nets to capture you while you’re airborne? Or what about an event that could have been inspired by Star Wars, where you could bring down these big mechanical tanks by grappling them with your own electrified rope and bring them down to their knees… That would have been so cool. In my mind, I’ve pictured Anthem “more awesome” than it actually turns out to be.
“Bioware has done a great job with the production value of their characters.”
In terms of story, the game does an “okay” job. It’s not a story you’ll remember for years but it’s still a better story than Destiny. Now, there aren’t any memorable characters, but I do find that Bioware has done a great job with the production value of their characters. The animations, facial expressions and voice acting has been great and it helps to maintain the little immersion the game has. The sound design of guns, abilities or sequences has been great, nothing to mention here. I know there was a sound bug in the demo, but from what I’ve played, it seems they squashed it.
Even though I’m enjoying the game, the game feels incomplete in so many ways. I can’t believe that they’ve worked on this game for about 6 years. In my mind, six years is a decent amount of time to create something, work out the mechanics, focus on the story, clean the game up and eventually create post-launch content. However, Anthem still feels like it’s in open beta and I don’t think you’re getting your money’s worth out of it… yet. Let’s talk positively first! The game has a great engine which makes the game beautiful. The lighting effects, textures, vegetation, … everything summed up creates a great atmosphere. The lore is interesting and the story is “okay”. The core mechanics of a “looter shooter” are there and even the flight mechanics feel amazing. But this doesn’t convince all players to play your game in the long run.
“Strong alone, stronger together”
There are some issues that need to be fixed ASAP before the game runs on empty. Technically speaking, I have very few issues running the game but the loading screens are a pain, especially if you want to keep up your immersion. The loading screens have been improved but they need to be fastened. The game can take up a whole minute of your time, just to load. Don’t get me wrong, there are a lot of players that don’t mind the wait, but other players want to use their time well, due to the limit amount of time they have to play. One minute is still okay on my watch, but it doesn’t stay at 1 loading screen. The game is full of it, even for the slightest feature you’re using and that’s just not okay. You don’t feel like it’s an open world online shooter because of the design choice to make the game a bit more controlled. To view your picked up weapons, you need to go to the forge where you eventually also can equip your weaponry. This simple feature needs a load screen. Playing in free mode seems fluent enough but the moment you’re entering a “closed off cave” there’s a loading screen. I don’t mind the loading screens in the beginning, because I want to play the game but it’s such a hassle.
“Strong alone, stronger together” is one of the catchphrases of Anthem but I don’t feel like you’re better off in a team when you’re playing your missions. There’s an option to play your game in a private or public server. I always pick a private server because of a couple of things. First of all, when you’re joining a public session of a certain mission, chances are high that you’re entering the mission’s section. Your actual game time will be shorter than your load time. If you’re playing in a squad of strangers and you try to keep track of them, best case scenario, you rejoin your squad but worst case scenario, the game tells you that you’re too far off and it will teleport you close to your teammates with the power of a loading screen. In the demo, you couldn’t even revive yourself after a while and you had to wait for one of your teammates to show up before you could re-appear. Fortunately, the reviving option has been altered with the Day One patch but this is kind of a red flag when you’re thinking about the design choices the developers made during their creation of Anthem. They had so many competitors, why didn’t they take the chance to look into these games and get some ideas or even improve ideas to build up their game? Make it a lot more interesting and learn from others mistakes and victories.
Fort Tarsis is the single player’s hub where you can customize your Javelin, check the in-game store, check your challenges and choose your expeditions. Even though the city is filled with characters and shops, it does feel a bit empty in my opinion. The characters within the city offer you a chance to talk about current events and they’ll often give you some options to choose from. These decisions don’t even seem to influence the story and when I first heard about Anthem, I thought that Bioware, known from Dragon Age and Mass Effect, would re-invent the storytelling in these type of looter shooters. Overall, they did an okay job but I couldn’t shake the feeling that this living city is just bland. I mean, the game is all about “stronger together” but there aren’t really missions where these main characters would join your quest for glory and help you out. Again, this breaks immersion and it’s just so disappointing, especially from the creators of Mass Effect.
“We will have to wait for the future and see where the game will be heading.”
Let’s talk about End Game for a bit, End Game in Anthem is just like Diablo. You replay certain missions but on a higher difficulty level. The higher the level of difficulty, the better the loot. This makes sense and I like this system, however, they do need to fix their loot system because it’s a bit flawed, especially because of some minor patches that have been installed this week. Last week, the drop rate seemed very good, even for masterworks but the loot you would be getting, is “super random”. Yes, like any shooter right? Not quite! The game works with a randomization system where the same weapons can drop but with different stats, however, these stats would be linked to the javelin your using. Most abilities that fall are for the javelin your using but the stats on weapons are so random, that some statistics don’t even matter because they dumb themselves down. Some stats of these weapons just don’t make sense to combine with your abilities or some stats combined give you a build-up that can easily be exploited. I do hope they fix this because the loot system is very important if you want to maintain your player base. Not only the loot system but the activities to do as well and this is where I feel that Anthem hasn’t been working “too hard” on Anthem. The game launches with only 3 strongholds ( dungeons) that can be played on different difficulty levels, however, these strongholds are reskinned versions of single-player missions. I don’t mind that but I’ll use the same statement as before, why didn’t they check out other loot games and made these types of raids their own? They could have done so much more interesting things and raise up their production value of Anthem but we will have to wait for the future and see where the game’s heading.
We need more creative and interesting strongholds, more diversity in weapons and how about some extra armor to earn in-game by doing challenges or events? I feel like they did this whole thing on purpose so you would buy sets in the in-game shop. EA said there would be no loot boxes in the game and for the moment, they’re keeping their word! However, even though the items that can be bought within the in-game shop, are purely cosmetic. I can’t shake the feeling that this shop will offer more interesting skins or armor sets than it is available within the actual game. That’s just not right. Again, Anthem is a looter shooter! This means that we’re playing a game to get better loot and even look better than the “noobs”. We want to brag about our achievements and this is something they need to fix as well, they’re already losing players because the loot system isn’t filling the whole of “gaining better weapons and better-looking armor”. I do want to give a shoutout to the “basic” customization. Using your javelin in the colors of your liking that can be changed all times, is just amazing. Hats off for that!
Another end-game feature is the so-called “Cataclysm”, this event has been hyped by the developers for so long! An event that changes the surroundings, spawns difficult enemies and will certainly test your skills as a pilot! Did you hype yet? Well, it’s not in the game. WHAT? Exactly. This is just the wrong way of thinking and I can’t believe they created this game in almost six years. After six years, you would think the game would launch in its full glory? I can understand the delay to fix some things or even the delay to add more strongholds and cataclysms. But I do find it so wrong, to literally start off the game in a “cataclysmic” scenario and after reaching the end game phase, there isn’t a cataclysm to fear… You’re hyping this feature but you didn’t even launch the game with a decent amount of things to do after you’ve hit the level cap. Yes, there are challenges to earn some coins that can be spent in the in-game shop, but some challenges aren’t worth it. Another thing, I’m worried about is the fact that these challenges END. Once you’ve done a challenge, it won’t open up again, so you’ll have to find other ways to earn some coins, if you don’t want to put in the work, you can always buy shards for real money. There are daily challenges, weekly challenges, and monthly challenges but I wonder if these challenges will offer enough coin to buy an armor set within the actual game. These in-game shop items rotate every two days, you’ll need to rush the game if you want to actually buy something with in-game gold. Then again, hopefully, these challenges will provide you with enough coins to buy an armor set. We live in a world where in-game shops are becoming “standard” and it’s not okay (in my opinion), even if we’re only talking about cosmetics.
Conclusion:
There’s a road map for Anthem that spreads out for the next 3 months. Even though I’m enjoying the game, I do believe they have to put in the works and fast because they’re losing customers as we speak. Anthem will be just like The Division or Destiny. An empty game in the beginning but an amazing game in the end. At least, that’s what I’m hoping for! I enjoy the game solo but also with friends, the core mechanics are just fun to play. There’s also a lot of negativity going about Anthem and I do feel that they’re exaggerating. Don’t get me wrong, the game still needs some work and it does have issues, especially when it comes to content BUT the core parts are there and people are enjoying it. Anthem needs to step up its game because people won’t buy this unfinished product for 60 bucks. If you know what you’re getting into, you should buy it and you will enjoy it. If you’re doubting about the next big thing, Anthem isn’t it but I do believe it will become a great game after some months. It’s just so sad to see that the industry launching unfinished games and they’re getting money for games that still needs time to evolve. In some cases, this can be accepted especially when you’re talking about EARLY ACCESS. But this game isn’t presented as EARLY ACCESS but a full launch triple-A kind of game and that’s just wrong. I do believe the developers want to make Anthem as good as they can, there were problems during the first week but their feedback and responses have been top-notch. If they continue down the same road I’m sure Anthem will be as big as possible in a couple of months.
6/10
in its current state
Played on PS4 and PC
