They’re certainly not as deep as I’d usually expect from BioWare, though at least there are occasional dialogue options to remind you that yes, this did come from that developer. The area you need to explore to acquire missions is too large, and your walk speed is irritatingly slow.Īnd most of the conversations simply don’t matter. Unlike the main game though, these sections are in first-person and are a chore to control.
Between missions you wander around your little home base and talk to secondary characters. I felt surprisingly unengaged though, with not a single character or story beat sticking in my mind after our demo day. Like Jupiter Ascending, you can tell too much work has gone into crafting Anthem’s universe, that BioWare’s trying to give Anthem as much depth in a single game as Mass Effect reached with three-and it just doesn’t work.Īgain, these are early impressions. It reminds me of Jupiter Ascending, a comparison that will make sense to all 15 people who saw that film. Anthem doesn’t give you any reason to care. Right out of the gate you watch world-ending events and see multiple team members die, but it’s a world you were introduced to five minutes ago and characters you’ve known for even less time.
There’s no delicacy to Anthem’s story, at least the parts I played, and no real hook. Someone will really love it, I bet, but it feels clumsy and overwrought. And if that weren’t enough, your home base is littered with documents to pick up every five or ten feet, more snippets of lore for the dedicated player to read through.
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There are five-minute cutscenes full of Important Sounding People doing Important Sounding Things that I literally couldn’t explain if I tried. Characters don’t really talk with you as much as at you, conversations peppered with terms you only half-understand or half-remember. BioWare’s attempting to spin up an entire universe all at once here, and the opening hour of Anthem is the info-dump to end all info-dumps. Listen, if that paragraph made you feel tired just know it’s just as exhausting to write it, and to play Anthem. My only complaint is that hitting Escape brings you straight to the store before you can access the map or other important info. I guess we’ll see how hard it is to unlock new cosmetic items when the game’s properly released, but I don’t really care if it’s all cosmetics.
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At least you can change out your color scheme for free though, and the base armor looks cool enough as-is. We got a glimpse of Anthem’s shop, and it looks like EA’s going to monetize armor pieces and decals to hell and back. Gear is per-Javelin, but it still seems relatively painless to change over.Īnd cosmetic customization seems like a focal point. It’s annoying that Destiny makes you run a different character for each class, so Anthem’s more flexible approach is welcome. AnthemĮven better: You can play all four Javelins from the same character. It feels a lot more intuitive than Destiny’s leveling system, albeit not as easy to change on the fly. The Storm starts with a lightning and an ice ability for instance, but there are multiple variations for each slot. Whatever Javelin you choose, you unlock armor components that let you swap out your secondary abilities. Anyway, there are some interesting ideas surrounding customization.