Anthem
Publisher: Electronic Arts
Release Date: February 22, 2019
Platforms: PS4, Xbox One, PC
Rating: Teen
Genre: Action Role Playing
Failure to Launch
Written by Jesse Seilhan
Anthem was announced and immediately turned heads. Closing out the Xbox press conference a few years back, people interested in a myriad of things (robots, Bioware, RPGs, and more) perked up to see what this new IP had up its sleeves. 18 months went by and very little information hit the streets before the game did, resulting in a discovery phase by gamers and skeptics alike. What nearly everyone came away with was that Anthem was definitely something different, but by failing to pay attention to the rest of the market, it was nearly dead on arrival. But is there anything redeeming about EA’s newest franchise or should you stay away at all costs?
I would start with the story, but there isn’t much of one to cover. The game handles nearly all storytelling through radio communication and a few cutscenes, most done with fairly modern quality in both the performance and delivery departments. But the substance, the who, what, when, why, and where of it all is lacking in nearly each of those areas. Much like Destiny, an evil force is destroying the planet (or planets, in Destiny’s case) and you’re tasking with stopping it. There are a few main characters that you speak with in the single visitable city in the game, none of which are memorable or impactful. The main baddies are either giant bugs or evil Dominion forces that feature crazy space monsters, magical beings, and regular dudes with guns. A couple (and I do mean a couple) big bosses rear their heads along the way. Luckily, they are all very fun to shoot!
The biggest thing Anthem has going for it is how it moves and how it plays. By giving the main character a jetpack and a ton of weapons and suit powers, each Javelin handles different and all of them offer a mix of on-the-fly strategies to employ. While the roles are traditional (big guy goes slow, small guy goes fast, etc.), the weapons are impactful and the various powers, like fireballs, electric beams, and rocket barrages, make it a joy to take on the enemies you face. All of this is only made better when combined with others, and the four player co-op actually does a great job of making each person’s artillery intermingle and create a more devastating offense. Your partner can set up a big attack with some ice blasts before you throw out the flamethrower to make a big COMBO go across your screen and fire some endorphins off in your brain.
Unfortunately, nearly every other aspect of this game is disappointing. The sheer number of technical bugs, from crashes to glitches, are overwhelming. And because the games doesn’t give you XP for kills but only once a mission is fully complete, it only takes a single crash to make you realize that you just wasted 5-20 minutes of your life. The UI for both managing your equipment and selecting missions is confusing, to the point where multiple patches still haven’t made the final product much better than the buggy mess at launch. While the shooting is fun, all weapons and items you find on your journey are locked out until after the mission is over, so you better hope the two guns you blindly choose for your current mission are effective! I could go on but the design decisions that went into this game completely missed the mark on nearly all attempts, leaving a bad version of a very popular and crowded genre currently dominated by the likes of The Division and Destiny.
It’s tough to make video games: always has been, always will be. The sheer amount of thought, effort, time, and precious resources to put out a digital product in 2019 is high, but the benefit of an experienced developer and publisher is that most of these things are accounted for. With Anthem, Bioware had decades of experience to pull from while Electronic Arts publishes some of the biggest games in the world. When issues arise during production and things come off the rails, the final product suffers. Anthem is barely better than its parts, but those parts are rough. If it weren’t for the smooth locomotion and satisfying power fantasy, this game would be nearly unplayable, but only those looking for something extremely frustrating should come to Anthem for any extended period of time.