You'd think BioWare would conjure up a better way to integrate freeplay into its story but evidently this isn't the case. This method of taking Anthem's story forward simply serves to pad the playtime by forcing you to access freeplay and has no business existing within the game. To do so, you'll need to complete a laundry list of boring objectives such as opening a set number of treasure chests, harvest plants found in the game world, or partake in a certain number of side activities within freeplay, known as World Events, to progress. The other is ensuring you can actually access them to take the plot forward. Although finding them is just half the job done. Without spoiling much, you'll reach a point in the story which forces you to go into freeplay - Anthem's public play space - to hunt down several key areas. Some - like tracking down a bandit masquerading as a Freelancer - standout, while others featuring the game's major enemy faction the Dominion are humdrum at best.Īnthem also suffers from some perplexing design choices. While you're never at a loss for what to do in mission, the narrative bits that glue them together is of varying quality.
You'll fly to a location, take down waves of foes, and indulge in some very light puzzle solving that has you moving pieces of the environment from one location to another. There's a pause between dropping into a mission area and being able to actually move, which wasn't present in the demo and on occasion, our progress wasn't saved, forcing us to replay certain sections featuring massive bosses and enemies aplenty all over again.įurthermore, most missions in Anthem follow the same template. And while the final build of Anthem isn't as bad, it's not completely stable either. In our Anthem demo impressions, we noted that it was far from a stable affair, riddled with bugs and glitches that made it a pain to play.
However, Anthem is also an example that not all change is good. Compared to BioWare's past efforts, Anthem is a drastic change with a focus on slick traversal and punchy gunplay over the deliberate pace of play possible in some of its past works. For most part, you'll fly across lush environments with the intention of putting an end to hostile creatures that pepper the landscape. Set in a distant future, you're a Freelancer, a warrior for hire who pilots exosuits known as Javelins. Anthem is an always-online sci-fi shared world shooter from Mass Effect and Dragon Age developer BioWare.