Anthem Review (PC)

Anthem primary reason to exist is not entertainment, but to make money, and that’s painfully obvious at any turn. It’s a shame because it bears the Bioware logo and, somewhere deep inside, a few great ideas are hidden.

The genesis of a new game usually follows the same route, no matter what studio is behind it. One or more people have an idea, and a game is slowly built around that idea. In this case, I don’ t really know if that was the path taken by Anthem.

If I were to guess, Anthem most likely started its life as an original idea, but somewhere along the line, it was hijacked by some good old-fashioned corporate greed. Electronic Arts wanted a piece of the gaming-as-a-service market, and Anthem was just a bystander.

I say most likely because the game comes from Bioware, a studio that made sure their name is synonymous to storytelling, and it seems that game development started six years ago, right after the launch of Mass Effect 3. There are bits of information that suggest Anthem could have been something else.

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First of all, the project was initially led by Casey Hudson, the same one who was responsible for the Mass Effect series. He then left Bioware in 2014 only to return three years later. Also, on the best writer behind Mass Effect, Drew Karpyshyn (with a couple of successful Mass Effect books), also worked on Anthem, before leaving the studio a second time, in 2018.

It seemed that Anthem was being built pretty much like Mass Effect, maybe with some multiplayer components, but that somehow got changed to something else. With Destiny from Activision and The Division from Ubisoft on the market, it’s difficult to resist the temptation.

Or maybe Bioware and Electronic Arts wanted to build Anthem like this right from the start. Honestly, I don’t know which is worse, because at its core this is not a bad game. It’s not a great one, but it leaves people wondering why it’s not more.

Story

The story of Anthem barely works, and many players are saying that it’s not raising to the standards imposed by the same studio. I know why it doesn’t work, and it has nothing to do with the writing or the world itself. Taken out of context, both of these aspects are strong enough to stand on their own, but in the larger picture they lack the foundation. Let me explain.

There is only one way to make people care about the story you’re telling, no matter the medium, whether it’s in a game or a book. The reader or the player has to empathize or be able to replace the main character with himself, and for that to happen, anchor points are needed.

The anchor points can be set up in two ways. One is to have the action set up in the real, human world. In this way, you don’t need explanations, as we all know the history of humanity. The second one is more complicated because the story takes place in a fantasy world.

It doesn’t matter if its Tolkien or R.R. Martin. Writers go through an extensive and painful process of building a world that makes sense, with the sole purpose of making the reader empathize.

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This doesn’t happen in Anthem because there is no world-building, so basically, there is no foundation. Bioware didn’t bother or didn’t have time to build the world from the ground up, so they started somewhere in the middle.

You’re a Freelancer, on a world that was supposedly built by an unknown race, who left before finishing the job. Relics that can harness an unknown type of energy named The Anthem of Creation are everywhere.  Since the world is unstable, the products made by The Anthem of Creation are unstable and cataclysmic, whether it’s mutating creatures or reshaping the landscape.

You’re also fighting against a faction called The Dominion that wants to control The Anthem of Creation, with a relic called the Cenotaph, which is stored under the city of Freemark. Things go wrong when The Dominion attacks and tries to harness the power of the Anthem, and Freemake is leveled leaving behind a cataclysm known as The Heart of Rage. The few surviving Freelancers scatter, and two years later you pick up the story in Fort Tarsis.

It’s a little bit more complex than this, with a few twists and turns along the way, but for the most part, it’s the main direction of the story. The problem is that it has no connection with me, as a reader, because it has no base.

Why are there people on this world, what’s the name of the planet, or where does their technology come from? I don’t even know if the planet is round. The history of humanity stretches just a few hundred years in the past, and that’s about it. There is not enough context for me to care. And to make things even worse, some people have British accents, some America, and a few others I can’t place.

The fact that a big chunk of the story is being told by NPCs that stand still, in the Citadel, sorry, Fort Tarsis, doesn’t help, no matter how good the voice acting is.

To go off on a wild theory tangent, I could argue that the events in Anthem take place in the Mass Effect universe, long after the travel network become unstable after the last game in the series. Some humans got trapped on a planet that was once inhabited by an old race who was wiped out by Reapers, of the Reapers themselves. If this is the case, it could make for an interesting cross-over.

Gameplay

Anthem’s strong suit, by far, is the gameplay. I know that people will argue that it’s repetitive, and they would be right. There is not enough content, or at least it’s not varied enough. The combat is fun and exciting, when you make it work, especially if you’re in a team that works together.

The idea sold by Bioware was that the world of Anthem is a vast place that can be explored in its entirety, with ease. That’s only half true. It’s a big map, with caves and underwater levels. It would take a long time to explore it entirely, but there’s a caveat. Bioware failed to mention that there is a loading screen for everything.

Those caves need to load, and the same happens with Fort Tarsis and even with the inventory screen. Some of those loading times were improved with patches, but the screens are still there, and I doubt that they could be removed entirely. I also have an impression that most of these loading times have to do with the memory limitations on consoles.

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Going through the main story can take about 15 hours, maybe more, maybe less. It depends on the difficulty chosen and on the number of players. Once you’ve finished, you’re left with replaying any story mission, world-events, and Strongholds, which is another word for raids.

The economic premise of Anthem revolves around loot, as expected. This is, after all, a loot-based shooter, meaning that users are going to be hunting for better weapons and items, more than anything else. The loot drops are not significant and it’s clear that it guides players in two directions, either grinding or hitting the in-game store to use some real cash.

By far, the most refreshing aspect is the Freelancer's suits, the Javelins. There are four classes, Ranger, Storm, Interceptor, and Colossus. The Ranger is a class that has a little bit of everything, Storm wields elemental powers, the Interceptor is extremely fast, and the Colossus has no shield, but a lot of armor and feels like a tank.

The classes are vastly different and make a difference. Moreover, Bioware allows players to use any Javelin, after unlocking them, with no restrictions. It’s a good way to mix things up and most likely the best thing about Anthem.

Multiplayer and graphics

I’m not the average player in these PvE games like Destiny or Anthem. I’m usually interested in the story, and I like to play them alone, but in Anthem, you’re encouraged to play with other people. The most significant advantage is that you can be revived when you’re down. That’s impossible when you’re playing alone.

Playing with other people, on more difficult settings, ensures a higher loot quality. And there is one instance when it’s required to play with other Javelins to advance the story, but the game can be done solo. It’s a little bit tedious in boss fights, during story missions or Freeplay, but it's not a deal breaker.

Unfortunately, there are some drawbacks for a multiplayer game. For example, there are no chat options, only VoIP. Good luck getting everyone to talk, not to mention that not everyone has a microphone. The matchmaking isn’t great either, and I constantly find myself in matches with vastly different players, either beginners or really advanced.

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As for the Anthem graphics, I’m pretty sure that there aren’t many people out there that don’t like how the game looks. The Frostbite engine was used in Mass Effect Andromeda and the entire Battlefield modern series, so it’s not a surprise that it’s performing so well.

What I didn’t care too much for was the level design, which is uninspired, to say the least. Fort Tarsis is boring, quiet, and unnecessarily convoluted, and the world doesn’t evoke uniqueness. With a couple of exceptions, everything looks the same, and most of the time I can’t say where I am without looking at the map.

The Good

The Bad

Conclusion