For one thing, as someone who plays online video games primarily as a platform to interact with friends, I found the near-constant expository dialogue delivered by NPCs during expeditions meant that I couldn’t get a word in edgewise to chat with my team. Overall, Anthem’s primarily single-player story combines with its persistent multiplayer world like water mixes with oil. But these glimpses of the BioWare of old dissipate back into your regularly scheduled tedium as quickly as they arise. Only during two major plot developments during the approximately 15-hour storyline do the things being discussed here appear to have actual consequence beyond the gates of Fort Tarsis, pairing unique mission gameplay with story elements in a meaningful way – even though there are no meaningful decisions to be made that affect outside gameplay. You’ll exit your nimble Javelin, mute voice chat, and meander around the small and eerily silent walled city at a snail's pace. The bulk of the plot is delivered in lengthy, barely interactive chunks every time you return to Fort Tarsis between expeditions.
Other than that, there’s no incentive to explore Freeplay or Strongholds until max level as they offer significantly less experience per time invested when compared to agent quests and contracts.
#ANTHEM GAME PC SERIES#
Likewise, the campaign only sent me into the open-world Freeplay mode twice, and one of these occasions was for a comically long section of busywork to open a series of tombs that didn’t exactly encourage me to come back. Being pushed into the dungeon-like Strongholds earlier on, or receiving fun masterwork weapons at a level lower than the cap of 30 may have provided a much-needed change of pace. “Anthem misses a lot of opportunities to spice up the gameplay of its critical path missions with elements that already exist but are held back for the endgame. This repetitive structure makes up the vast majority of gameplay in the main story, called the “critical path.” Both agent quest and contract mission types are hilariously formulaic, to the point where my friends and I even made a game out of guessing the next objective that would be thrown our way as we flew toward it, and getting it right depressingly often. It seems odd that BioWare didn’t disable these conversations during different points in the main storyline, because it made interacting with them feel like a peek behind the curtain that broke the illusion and exposed these lifelike characters for the unthinking automatons they are.Most of Anthem’s dialogue, though, seems to exist to justify the maddening reuse of dull activities during quests like standing on a capture point or fetching items to unlock a door. Some characters forgot that they were supposed to be mad at me after major events, while others were still bitter even though I had smoothed things over in the previous expedition. With that said, my desire to engage with the cast waned after it became clear that optional conversations were tonally out of sync with the events of the main storylines. I found myself emotionally invested in a few characters like Haluk, the prideful old warrior who refuses to hang up his armor despite it being in the best interest of himself and those around him. This cast of bohemian future folk are generally charming and well acted, at times stealing the show to deliver a touching monologue. You play as a Freelancer, an altruistic mercenary who pilots a mech called a Javelin and subsists on the dangerous contracts divvied out by the denizens of Fort Tarsis.
Anthem, as it stands now, is an adventure best saved for a later date.Anthem takes place on the wild frontier of Bastion, a sprawling and colorful sci-fi expanse littered with aggressive wildlife, encroaching enemy factions, and mysterious shaper relics that end up being little more than glorified enemy spawners. Unfortunately, there simply isn't enough of this kind of content to make it worth the wait, and what's here is inconsistent in terms of polish, clarity, and balance.
Anthem's endgame is surprisingly fun since its already excellent combat is reinvigorated by interesting loot and challenging gameplay later on. These pitfalls don’t have to be synonymous with shared-world shooters, MMOs, or online ARPGs, but here we are again. I’ve played far too many games like Anthem, an online RPG that only makes good on its promise of meaningful multiplayer gameplay and progression after you’ve labored through its long-winded and repetitive story quests.
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