It’s a crying shame what’s been happening to BioWare these past few years. Highly-praised for story-driven games the likes of the Dragon Age and Mass Effect series, the announcement of Anthem back in 2017 was a head-scratcher, to say the least. The game looked more like something akin to a co-op looter shooter rather than what the studio had us used to. It looked gorgeous, without a doubt. Narrative elements were there too, alongside some idea that could have potentially elevated the subgenre the game was riffing off. What came out of it all in 2019, though, was a bug-riddled mess of a game that resulted in a 55 Metacritic score, BioWare’s lowest to date.
Anthem has now been taken back to the drawing board in hopes to give it a second wind just like FFXIV did before it. For now, let’s take a look at what happened along the way.
Anthem Has No Meat on Its Flimsy Bones
One of Destiny’s most critical issues during its original iterations first year was its distinct lack of a cohesive narrative. Similarly, Anthem is a game set in a world that has clearly been built but never truly fleshed out. You play as a Freelancer who’s able to pilot a special robotic suit known as a Javelin. These Iron Man-inspired exoskeletons are seemingly the only way to safely traverse the world beyond the walls of the last remaining cities of humanity. While there’s a whole bit of “what” exposed here, there’s barely enough “why” or “how” to keep you engaged. There are nuggets of story beats that touch on certain aspects of Anthem’s world and you could do some theory crafting as fans of the Dark Souls series like to do. But the game doesn’t even want to have you sleuth around looking for clues as to how things played out in the alien world you’re inhabiting.
Obnoxious Cash Mongering Ruined the Fun
The video game industry has made it quite abundantly clear that live services are what they like. Games that serve no other purpose than to turn players into perpetual payers. Anthem was butchered into becoming one such abomination. The game may not offer any gameplay-related microtransactions but their cosmetics were still obnoxious. Javelins are the main focus so what better way to make players open their wallets than to lock most of the cool skins behind a paywall? Even more frustrating was the game’s lineup of editions that required a whole chart just to figure out what you were getting.
A Sandbox Without Much Sand
Traversing the world of Anthem by flying around like Marvel’s Iron Avenger is nothing short of awe-inspiring. It’s truly the most fun experience in the game. Which is a shame when you consider there’s nothing fun about the rest of its gameplay. Missions are boring fetch quests with a few frustrating puzzles sprinkled here and there. Strongholds, the game’s equivalent to dungeons, boiled down to battles of attrition. Even the mechanics of the four different Javelins felt stale and the gunplay dull. Worst of all was the delay in releasing any significantly bigger activities as promised, such as raids, which also ended up not being worth the wait.
Something is hiding beneath the rough exterior of Anthem’s diamond. It took FFXIV’s dev team a miracle to pull off A Realm Reborn. Let’s pray that one happens for BioWare.
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