Unfinished: Anthem (01/24/2019)

Why do all these mmoish loot shooters keep doing this same sci-fi mysticism aesthetic and setting? Destiny, Warframe, and Anthem's looks all just kind of blend together in my brain.

Great, I am not buying this then!

Every single thing about this looks derivative and it looks like someone at Bioware played some Warframe and went "what if we did that, kind of?"

At best this will be a deep discount game for me.

I can barely see the enemies... I can't tell if it's the perspective/lighting/design but comparing this to Destiny, I can pretty vividly remember what those Destiny enemies look like. You got right up in their face all the time in Destiny, and they had a lot of character. These enemies look like blobs with glowy bits or big squares attached.. And say what you will about Destiny but its lighting is pretty spectacular, even when you're in a dark area you have an incredibly bright flashlight. Here it's just fucking dark. Particle effects look nice at least.

Just a nitpick I guess but visually it's just underwhelming. Also the gunplay/feel of Destiny is the primary thing I liked about it, if it's just another loop game with less precise mechanics then...why?

Only Mr. "They killed Mass Effect" can go to Bioware (old Vulcan proverb).

god i hope this thing has a soul- or a spark of something waiting in the wings to draw players in.

if it ends up just being competent (tight shooting, decent loot, lackluster customization and a trite story)- that ain't gonna be enough for me, and i'm not sure it would be enough for EA/Bioware either.

it's kinda sad, but for me Bioware has gone from being a day-1-purchase studio to presently being back in the for-the-love-of-god-wait-and-see position.

Looks like Destiny but actually good and without all the disgusting business practices

@newfangled: There is a much greater focus on abilities and combo-ing them together, Brad just wasnt looking at his CDs. Not his fault he's barely played the game. From the gameplay stream they did a while back they had enough gear to actually have a proper ability rotation. Like if you killed x enemies with y ability then your other ability would deal more explosive damage, and then that ability would also have modifiers to change CD, damage effects etc. It was fairly in depth.

This looks more or less exactly like what I was expecting. The pivot to being primarily gameplay driven over story makes sense, since iirc they've lost a lot of the writing talent from back in the mass effect days. As was said in the Castle Superbeast podcast, whether or not anthem succeeds we're likely done with bioware being a company that puts out story-driven singleplayer experiences. It's sad, but at least the good parts of andromeda and whatnot are being salvaged into something decent.

I had the exact same reaction as Jeff at the "story space." Even Destiny's hub, which was also filled with people standing around and waiting for you to talk to them, was at least alive with other people. This just seems so... weird, and sad.

Apparently they've come out and said that they're changing it to include other players (unless I'm misremembering the headlines) but that they even need to be told by the audience to change that is worrying. This reminds me of Discord launching without basic store features like wishlisting. I get why it might be glossed over leading up until release but seriously, spare an afternoon and look at what competitors are offering before stepping up to the plate.

Wow they really went out of their way to try and compare this to Mass Effect over and over again, guess what, its not Mass Effect. Just cause its by the people that made ME doesn't mean its going to be ME x Destiny. They're not trying to make another ME!!! They're trying to make their own Destiny lol.

The game looks fun though, too bad there's like 276 games coming out around that same time. Its gonna be a crowded release period for sure. Almost seems like its to a studios detriment to release their game the same time 197 other games are coming out.

A bunch of the writing staff from ME still very much works for the studio. Hell Drew Karpyshyn actually did work on Anthem.

Also they aren't done with singleplayer experiences either, they literally just announced the next Dragon Age game like 2 months ago.

Brad lives!

They've said that the story space will actually change as the story goes along and that NPCs will start to populate these spaces more as the story progresses.

Also what they added was a social hub, they aren't changing Fort Tarsis to include other players, they added a space to change equipment and select missions with other players.

This is just fucking depressing as hell... You know that "I think it's time" feeling you get from seeing your beloved pet start sleeping a lot, eating less, having no enthusiasm for play, and there's no sparkle left in its eyes? That's the vibe I get from BioWare these days. I love you BioWare, we've had a lot of great years together and I don't think you'll ever understand how grateful I am to have had you in my life. I wish I could hold onto you forever, because I'd love for you to go on making games for the rest of my life, but that's selfish and irresponsible, and I don't want you to suffer. So...I think it's time.

..doesnt Brad play Warlock in Destiny? Like, I get that's not strictly a "spellcaster" but, neither is the class he's playing in this.

This seems identity-less, or worse an inferior clone. Needless and unnecessary. Sadder than just plain bad because it looks like a lot of talented work went into it. It doesn't seem to offer anything I can't get better elsewhere. If it was free, I'd certainly try it, and perhaps discover otherwise. But as it stands, I can't justify the purchase with so much else out there I already own.

Looks generic and boring.

This looks . . . just OK.

I still don't understand what the pitch is for this game. Like, if you're really into Destiny or Warframe, this doesn't seem likely to pull you away. But if you're not into those things, this doesn't seem to be doing anything different enough to differentiate itself.

I'm always had a slight curiosity about this game, but this footage at least isn't enough to translate "curiosity" into "purchase."

I'm replaying Dragon Age: Origins right now, and seeing how rapidly Bioware has shapeshifted into something unrecognizable these past 10 years, especially looking at the two games side-to-side is bumming me out way more than I thought it would in a post-Andromeda world.

Game obviously isn't out yet, but first impressions are giving me a real soulless vibe from this. I hope they can figure out a way to make this work for them.

Someone above said "rote" and that's the word that also came to my mind while watching this - rote and souless checkbox design.

Also, people still talking about Bioware today vs yesterday like they're at all the same company. Old Bioware died many years ago after SWTOR and DA2 flopped and The Doctors left (not necessarily in that order.)

the story being pretty bland and unoriginal doesn't shock me. something about faceless main characters like these allows leads me to think the story is going to be uninteresting. Seems like they sacrificed story and unique characters for cool looking gameplay. when i was younger late teens I would be fine with that, but as I've gotten older the less gameplay matters so much to me; so hearing that the story is just fine is disappointing. shame bioware has seemed to leave the unique and interesting world behind for game mechanics.

Ugh, not looking great imo. Seems like Destiny chasing.

I’m into the cape and particle effects.

I can't believe the only way to do the early start is to pay 15 bucks a month... even buying the 80 dollar edition doesn't get you early start. I can justify 80 bucks on a game but not 15 bucks a month and not own it.

It's not meant to rly. (pull you away)

Here's the thing about both Destiny and Warframe, they are not MMO's, you aren't meant to be playing them as your single main game all the time, they often have very big luls in content with nothing to do and then occasional big updates, so players that stick with those games generally come back in surges during the content drops. Many people who play games like these and stuff like Monster Hunter, play several of these at a time on and off, along with other games too. These games while do ask a lot of time of the player don't fill it like a regular MMO would.

Actually talking to and looking at a lot of communities a lot of the players in both Warframe and Destiny are looking for Anthem as a good middle ground; with more skill/gear/depth of customization and ability use then Destiny but more approachable then Warframe is at the outset. Those communities are the ones that are way more positive on Anthem then most of the GB comments you see here funnily enough.

With only two main games of the type on the market (yes im discounting the Division on purpose), people who are into this style of games aren't quite swimming in goodies just yet. Anthem is entering still a very fresh market that has a lot of unexplored areas, and there are also big vulnerabilities and missteps in the design of both Destiny and Warframe, that can be exploited and done better with by a savvy developer.

Alright, finsihed the video. The one thing I was interested in other than the flight mechanic was the randomized color coded loot, but Destiny's doing that too now, right?

Seems fine, and a lot like when Destiny first came out - really incomplete.

Yeah Brad!

Also, holy crap that hub seems lifeless!

Man, that bar Brad went into felt fucking dead. RDR2 has spoiled me for npc crowds.

Listening to Brad translate literally every bit of this game through Destiny filters is soul crushing. This is what Bioware is doing now? Making Destiny with worse shooting, after Destiny 2 is already out?

Brutal duder. Hope you're wrong but, yea I can feel that.

All the footage I've seen of this game is multiplayer. This is gonna be another one of those games that "support" singleplayer, but really sucks if you don't have a group to play with, isn't it ?

This game is barely an MMO, just another dull loot shooter it seems.. Just like Destiny.

This looks like EA executives showed Bioware Destiny and said "make this," and sadly Bioware will be "punished" for making EXACTLY what the EA executives (See: Greedy Idiots in Charge) asked for all along.

This was actually really disappointing

What you do will matter.

...I promise.

Talking about Anthem lately, I am reminded of back in ME3 when people were like "HOW DARE THEY ADD MULTIPLAYER TO MY SINGLE PLAYER NARRATIVE FOCUSED game" and we were (at least I was) like fine it's just feature Bioware will always focus on single player deep narrative first. .... now Anthem is like ME3 multiplayer fleshed out with a bigger scope.

That being said, I said this when talking about the 2019 roadmap for Warframe

Anthem is a game has chance to bridge the gap between the two games. People not satisfied by Destiny's offering, but also unable to get through the barrier of entry (bad on-boarding) or not satisfied with Warframe either. I can see a lot of players getting into Anthem during the lulls while waiting for Destiny / Warframe updates. Who knows some people might end up preferring it over the two.

Mechanically, I am guessing the movement in Anthem will take some getting used to really nail down just like Warframe. If you are mindful how much heat you use and time your movement I bet you can get really good at flying around constantly.

Warframe's movement is definitely faster, and in Warframe there's no stamina restriction so you can just bullet-jumping constantly. Anthem I think strikes a balance.

Playing Storm on the ground shooting a gun with abilities off cooldown the vast majority of the time... Probably should watch someone who knows what they are doing play this game before judging. The combat is much deeper than destiny, but Brad doesn't seem to realize he can be doing more.

I'm not exactly expecting much out of Anthem, basically a better different Destiny mostly, but I think if this game was labeled Destiny 3 instead of Anthem Brad would of been a fountain of praise instead of the constant negative and downtrodden persona seen here.

Jeff complaining about NPCs who stand there waiting for you to come talk to them so they can say their one line of dialogue, which to him is "like Dragon Warrior 2", is hilarious. He had to go back that far to compare it something, rather than, say, the vast majority of games with NPCs that you can talk to? I know he blows things out of proportion whenever he does not like a game and finds anything he can to lambast, but that was odd.

It's like Bungie made mashed potatoes and gravy, and EA made gravy and potatoes (mashed).

I feel like a lot of people's negativity towards this game doesn't really stem from Anthem, but rather from their opinions on Bioware in general. I think a lot of people are only now coming to the realization that we probably won't be getting another high-quality Bioware RPG. I suspect that if Bioware Montreal had nailed it with Andromeda, people would be more...charitable with their opinions on Anthem.

I don't know; it's not the type of game that interests me, but I'm always for developers doing something out of their comfort zone. Bioware Edmonton has been making grand RPGs for a very long time; I'm down to see them do something else.

this'll probably be good. im not putting money down on it being revelatory or great, but i bet it'll be solid and do fine for them. ill play it on that origin access thing for sure

It looks fine. Not terrible, not amazing, but fine. But that's what the problem is.

I know its still early, and this is only a small look at the game, but I went from 'cautious optimism' to 'sad realization'. So, uh... Thanks, I guess.

this is so incredibly underwhelming

Destiny already makes the best playing version of this so if this isn't heavy on story then I don't really feel much pull by this game.

Also getting underwhelming loot shooters from Bioware and Bethesda so close is feeling like The Old Republic and Elder Scrolls online all over again.

This looks like destiny... which is fine, except its not what I get Bioware games for.

Looks like DOOM level design.

Curious as to how this gameplay will hold up over several hours.