Anthem PS4 Review: "Saved by its outstanding moment-to-moment gameplay but nearly everything else needs a lot of work."

Anthem: Ps4 Review

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Patch Version:  Anthem 1.04

I don’t think anyone can argue that Anthem’s release was a bit of mess.  The early access was on a build that had plenty of core issues that hurt it critically without a doubt, and even after the true release and day 1 patch, it still suffered from crippling issues that surely effected it commercially, even though it held the top spot on the UK charts for two consecutive weeks.   However, this does not abate the core problems still plaguing it as I write this.

It’s clear to me that the game was just not ready for release, and most likely was forced out the door by E.A. in order to make their end of year financial deadlines.

I’m sure Bioware would have warned them about their concerns, so either E.A. didn’t care, or they didn’t mind the initial hit the game would suffer, having faith that Bioware could turn it around and save it.  This though is a pretty big ‘slap in the face’ to the players who bought the game on release and more so to those who paid for early access if you ask me.  Then again, considering Anthem has been in development for six years, that's a long time for E.A. to be paying a developer to craft a product with no returns.  Don't get me wrong, as I have said in other reviews, I've not been the biggest fan of E.A. since they shut down another game as a service called Earth and Beyond that I loved, but hey, they're not in the business of making games, they are in the business of making money.

Still, is Anthem really that bad?  Many games as a service have been guilty of poor release builds, perhaps not in the stability department, but certainly to some degree in other areas.

However, the problems with Anthem goes beyond a lack of stability, and though I’ve played buggier games,  I’ve not experienced a game till now that on one hand has been so much fun to play, whilst on the other, so frustrating!

Sure there’s connections issues and disconnects, but for the majority of the player base these have been rectified now, especially on the PS4.  I myself, having spent two weeks with the game (80 hours) have only been disconnected twice.  I’ve had the crash that shuts down my PS4 completely and forces it to perform a system check four times now, but contrary to what other media outlets have been saying, this has not had any operational effects to my PS4, or any other PS4 machines according to Sony that is.

However, this aside, a crash of this severity is really quite shocking to be honest, it's not the only game to have done this to people's PS4s, but is a serious fault that needs fixing as a priority, which, according to a recent Bioware stream has been fixed already and will make it into the build that comes out on the 9th of March.

What’s wrong with Anthem though, as I said goes beyond stability.  Certain features are just not finished, and others are either missing key elements or simply not balanced with glaringly bad bugs that break certain aspects to a point that makes you not want to play.  

Anthems only saving grace is the fact the moment to moment gameplay is superb.  It’s just a delight, once that is you get past the loading screens and into a game.

Bioware should also be commended for their Javelins systems.  The four playable suits are distinct and diverse enough to make playing the game feel truly different.  And the flying systems, frankly, are amazing on the PS4 in a world that is breathtaking albeit a little samey.

As I said, this is Anthem’s saving grace, and also the reason I’m so conflicted and confounded with it, because nearly every other aspect does not come close to this level of perfection.

But before I start talking about the failings, I want to put to bed something that's being used over and over in relation to Anthem, and that's: "This game took six years to make?!" No, it didn't take six years.  This game, the game you're playing right now, this is the result of two years at best.  The concept of Anthem has been in development for six years as I myself stated in this review above, but that is not the same thing.

Let me explain:

Here’s a little piece of insider information that developers don’t often tell you.  When a new IP has been in development for extended periods of time, let’s say, ‘six’ years if I am to pluck something out of the air, the game you end up with is very different to the game they started pitching/designing/creating  in year one.  The game you get at the end is probably the second or even the third re-envisioned version.  Sure, a few features here and there can be reused, some systems might still be applicable and so they can be kept and modified, but there will be a lot of work, sometimes years of work that is just wasted and thrown away because it was no longer compatible or viable with the new envisioning.

Hell, the first year of any new IP in a studio normally consist of them sitting in meetings trying to decide what the game they want to make will even do, let alone how it's going to work, followed by endless milestones of prototype behaviors attempting to prove out if what they want is even possible let alone any good.

Take a game like the recent God of War, which took five years, they even stated that a big portion of that time consisted of them starting from scratch.

In Anthem’s case, given what’s in the game right now, or should I say what isn't, matched with the degree of bugs it has and the general lack of balancing, this is not a six year game, and if I had to guess, in the first two or so years, the game was very different and full based flight was just not a thing.  I imagine they realized the original version of the game was lacking in some key area, so played around with a few ideas, and the result was shaped and became what we see now.  Just imagine for a moment a game that isn't designed for full based flight.  The features, the world itself would all need to change.  They too would have to start again from scratch.  So six years?  No.  

But that's enough of me theorising, let’s begin with the facts in relation to the real problems with Anthem. 

*In no particular order

LOADING TIMES: 

Though the loading times have been improved, not fixed, improved, the loading problems are exacerbated because there’s so damn many of them, especially so for the majority of the campaign.  And here’s why:

• Boot the game and load into Fort Tarsis, which is Anthem’s HUB for accepting missions and doing basically anything out of your Javelin, like talking to NPC’s and collecting missions.
• Want to see what you have equipped; you have to visit a particular point in the HUB called the forge to do this, which triggers a loading screen, albeit a short one.
• When finished you have to return to the HUB, this triggers a loading screen.
• Going into the mission triggers a loading screen.
•  If there’s a cutscene at any point it will trigger a loading screen.
•  If you die in an area that does not restrict respawning and do not wait for a player to resurrect you, this will trigger a loading screen, which frankly baffles me to be honest.  What’s it loading?  You’re in the world already!
• Finish the mission and there’s a loading screen to an end of mission report showing what you have earned in that particular session.
• From the mission report screen, there’s a loading screen back to the HUB to start the whole process of again.

What makes it worse, especially when playing with three other people, is the length of the missions when in the campaign.  They’re just too short.  Most of them can be done in around ten minutes even on the highest available difficulty before reaching max level.  And as I already said, because the gameplay is amazingly fun the interruptive and many loading screens taint that experience. 

As to who thought all these loading screens would be a good idea or even acceptable to the player base, I’ll never know.  It was probably a limitation of the world being so open and was too late to change when they found out.

If they were at least interactive or showed you more interesting images, that would help pass the time, but no, there were and are not.

Next on the docket...

FREEPLAY:

The second core problem is one of the games strengths but also its weaknesses.  Freeplay is a mode that allows you to fly, fight and explore the entire world of Bastion to your heart’s content with no restrictions or loads once you are in the game, with the exception of the Hidden Places that I will talk about later, but there are key elements missing from this mode.

For instance:

• The world itself is pretty barren on enemies.  All the enemy locations or bases are utterly desolate.  I’m not sure if this is an emergent spawning problem, but it makes hunting down things to kill annoying.  In all fairness, it’s improved somewhat since release, but on release it was horrendously lacking.

• World events.  These events bring the world to life and are randomly triggered, meaning, if you are unlucky, you could fly around and keep missing them, especially so as they only display on the HUD if you get close to them.   This was a problem in the original Destiny, albeit not as bad because their worlds were extremely small in comparison to Anthem’s, but they fixed this problem by marking the world map and displaying where and when the next event would trigger.   Anthem could greatly benefit from doing this I believe, and truly hope they implement a system like it.

• If you die during a world event, though you can respawn after a short elapsing of time, (loading screen) you respawn only god knows where, leaving you unable to figure out where you last were fighting, meaning you probably won’t be able to return to the world event or whatever you were doing, which is very frustrating.

• You can’t place manual nav point markers, and because there’s no mini map, you’ll find yourself having to view the full screen map to constantly double check that you are going the right way.

• The world is huge but you can only have four people in it at any given time making it feel rather lonely when playing out of a squad.  And if you are playing alone, on loading in, though you can see the other players on the map / compass if any are present, you have no idea as to what they are doing nor as to how far they are away.

• There is a lack of ability to communicate with other players, unless you want to use VOIP.  No chat.  No wheel menu with a host of set communication phrases.  I’ve seen people resulting in firing their guns at particular points to get people’s attentions.  Primitive, but it works.  This isn’t really something that bothers me all that much, but I know for a lot of people it does, which is why I mention it.  However, this isn't really a freeplay problem but I thought I mentioned it here.

• Hidden Places, these are instance-based areas in the world that trigger a short loading screen to enter but do offer some guaranteed enemies to kill ending with some elite or legendary to do battle with.  However, once you reach the last room, all you have is an interaction point to load you back to the open world.  No guaranteed chest to loot or collectable to interact with, just a portal to save your legs.

• You cannot trigger contracts you have collected from Fort Tarsis whilst in freeplay itself.  It would have been amazing to complete one contract, fly to another contract mission point and start that then complete it till you have done all the contracts you have collected from the Fort, removing the need to return to the Fort entirely, until that is you were ready to cash in your experience, rewards and collect more missions.  Even if this triggered a loading screen, it would be better than having to load out to the Fort.

• You do not earn XP for your kills. You earn XP for killing enemies and earning medals, which turn into XP once you decide to end the expedition you are currently playing in.  What this means is, technically, after a period of time you earn all medals and earn no more XP, forcing you to quit out and load back in to reset your medals.

• The world has chests hidden all over it that are dynamically spawned yet the Icon on them only shows up when you are practically on top of it.  This makes finding them more frustrating than anything.  I'm not expecting them to be so apparent they glow like the sun, but increasing the range just a little bit more would be nice.

The third problem with the game is a BIG one and that's with its LOOT and the Systems that feed into it, which is down to a combination of problems:

• The difficulty the player can choose to play content at is having hardly any impact on the increased levels of higher tiered loot dropping particularly when at max level.

• Strongholds (Dungeons) offer the same chance at rewards regardless of which you do, yet scale in difficulty through content therein on top of the difficulty you choose to play them at.
• The first is easier than the second & the second is easier than the third.  As such, players are choosing to play the first as it is more efficient yet at the same times makes the experience more repetitive than it otherwise would be.  (There is no incentive to play the others more than once, and no random stronghold loading option with rewards for choosing this option, which would help.)

• Some people are choosing to play Strongholds but quitting before the boss, as it is more efficient to do the first two portions of the stronghold for loot than continue to the boss itself leaving those in the game struggling with the end encounter.

• The difficulty curve between the top difficulties tiers is too extreme, and considering the extra time and effort a player must put in, to complete that content on those difficulties, the effort/time vs reward does not marry, meaning there is no incentive to actually do said content and so are choosing, for the most part, not to.

• Loot (until recently) was completely random in regards to the stats on items you attained.  Because of this, players could attain a weapon or a piece of gear that had stats that did not in any way aid them or that particular item. 
• Note:  though the stats system has been somewhat fixed in this regard, it is still not 100% perfect.  Some stats are not working or switched off because of other problems and the wrong stats can sometimes still appear making them less than useful.

• End level content, including bosses or elite/legendary enemies can drop and do drop common or uncommon type loot, which is frustrating because they don't drop much loot in the first place, so if that is all you get that time around due to RNG it makes you less enthusiastic about hunting down another to kill.

• If a player is fully decked in masterworks (the second to highest rarity tier), completing end game content in Anthem, 90+% of the time, rewards you with only rare items or lower, which are 100% useless to you improving your setup, and therefore junk and cannot even be used to repeat craft the MWs you do have to try for better stat rolls, giving you really no incentive to repeat the more difficult content or the end game in general.

• Because legendary weapons also have random chance stats applied to them, it means that they can be extremely sub-par compared to a rarity weapon beneath them, and considering the drop chance for Legendary items is extremely low, correct or not, you could get one that is pathetic in comparison to a lower rarity weapon, which is not only frustrating but also disheartening, again, removing the incentive to repeat and participate in end game content.

As you can see, there’s a fair bit broken with the loot system and the systems that tie in with it.  It’s not going to be one quick and simple fix to resolve it either.  At the very least, Bioware is making efforts to address some of the problems, but they still have a very long way to go.  It isn’t impossible though, after all, Diablo 3 (another looter based game) was likewise afflicted with loot related issues on release till they were addressed and resolved, but with games like the Division 2 around the corner, Bioware needs to act fast to at least highlight and confirm the problems to the community to reassure that they will be addressed.

The forth problem is with BUGS in general.  There's no sugar coating it, there's a lot of them, too many to mention really, too many that suggests the game had hardly any stability period and they were most likely still working on and ramming in features left right and center right up to the dead line, reinforcing my earlier assumption that the game was released before it was ready.

The fifth problem is with QUICKPLAY that is meant to allow players to randomly join any open squads with free places so you can help them.  However, though it does work, this also has a multitude of problems.

• Lower level players that are using the feature are occasionally being loaded into games and difficulties way above their station.

• If you are unlucky and load into someone's game that is currently doing one of the campaign missions, the odds that the mission will break is quite high.  I imagine this is a mid game joining problem.

• You only get 200 bonus XP for using this option, which isn't really much of a incentive.

• You can't use Quickplay to choose a particular area of the game.  (However, this is apparently being patched into the build on the 9th, allowing you to queue for a random mission or a random stronghold.)

The Sixth problem is with the USER INTERFACE.  

• For a start it's not the most user friendly of designs I've seen, but also, interactions with it create huge delays when you try to dismantle items making the process very painful.

• The cooperative functionality of the interface is also lacking:

• You cannot inspect other peoples Javelins.
• You cannot click on a friend through the interface and Join their game.
• Inviting someone to your game is a confusing affair that baffles you the first time around.
• When in a squad and not the host, it's not exactly clear what the hell is happening whilst in the lobby because the lobby appears exactly like the expedition menu you yourself see when starting an expedition.

The last problem is something that boggles my mind.  There is no STATS MENU.

Anthem is completely missing a stats menu?!  A fact that is dumbfounding considering the sort of game it is and the fact you are meant to keep playing to attain better stats on stuff, especially when gamers playing these types of games love to see their total stats and the numbers their abilities and stat-affecting items have on said menu.  

It feels like a massive and key missing feature and it puzzles me as to why it wasn’t implemented for release.  I truly hope that Bioware consider adding such a feature at some later date, I just hope it won't be hidden behind yet another loading screen like the forge it self.  If it is, well... you gotta give Bioware credit for being at the very least consistent.

If you've read this far, you'll probably surprised that people are still playing Anthem, but as I said, it is tremendously fun if you can forgive the many shortcomings it has, and in Bioware's defence, they are making good strides in fixing these issues as fast as they can, and also being rather open on forums and streams quite regularly.

The other allure keeping people interested is that all the DLC content coming to the game is going to be free.  They have even posted a 90 day road map detailing what will be coming.  But yes, there is no paid expansion pass!  This is because they are hoping to make their money from in game transactions, but before you start running for the hills, everything you can buy is cosmetic only.  Think Dota.  But I'll talk more about this later.

Initial Score after 2 hrs of play (Day 1 Patch)

Full Playthrough Score after 80 hrs of play  (1.04 Patch)

These core problems aside, how does the game hold up in the other areas?

Well, let’s start with the campaign.  Having chosen the look of your character from a pre-designed set, along with the gender of your voice, the campaign will take the average player between 15 to 20 hours to complete it.  I’m sure hard-core gamers that rush it could probably shave of a few hours at the very least, but still, bang for buck, a 15 to 20 hour campaign is rather respectable considering many other campaign games come in under the ten hour mark.  Of course, there are games like God of War, Spider Man, The Witcher than hit 40+ but they are special little butterflies.

As for the story itself, well, it isn’t terribly original, but at the same time isn’t terribly bad either.  It at least holds your attention and keeps you engaged.  Not only is it longer and more compelling than Destiny 1 was on release (since most people are comparing the two games), but the quality of the NPC’s and the cutscenes are superb.   (Fans who played Mass Effect Andromeda on release should rejoice)

There is also plenty of side content too that is of equal measure to the campaign itself, which will see you playing through three semi-interesting NPC stories fully voiced and cutscene acted as well.

Once these side quests are complete, the missions do not end there either.  Completing them will unlock different repeatable contracts including the much sort after legendary contracts that guarantee at least one Masterwork rarity item, one of which being guaranteed to be a component.  (Bear in mind that these three Legendary contracts can only be done once a day, so if you do nothing else whilst you wait for more content to come at endgame, be sure to log in and do them.)

My only two gripes regarding the campaign is that the missions for 90% of it are over too quickly, and as a result make it feel too fragmented with the loading screen problems that I pointed out earlier.

The other, is the inability to replay the campaign missions on a difficulty of your choosing, and though this is still true as I write this, Bioware has said they are planning on implementing more challenging versions of the campaign.  Albeit, only the first couple of missions at first to gauge interest before investing time and working on more .  However, even Destiny allowed you to replay the missions at different difficulties on the original release after completing them, so the lack of it in Anthem is felt more greatly.

I should also point out that you can technically start a new and separate pilot and replay the campaign again. You can also choose a mode called quickplay (BUGS), which gives you a random chance of entering someones elses game to assist them, and if they are currently on a campaign mission, you will play through it with them.

 As I briefly mentioned early, the four Javelins are practically perfect.

• Storm:  The mage like class
• Colossus:  The Tank
• Interceptor:  The Rogue
• Ranger:  The Jack of all trades

The unique and frankly genius notion here is that you are not restricted to just one of them, your character, or Pilot as Anthem calls it, has access to all four.  This is because your level is tied to your pilot, and as you level up you will unlock a new Javelin slot.  First at 2.  Second at 8. Third at 16, and the last at 26.

You even get to choose which you unlock when you reach these unlock points giving you total freedom by the endgame allowing you to gear up all four and swap between them whenever you like; in the HUB of course via the forge, (Loading Screens!).

I really like this aspect to Anthem, (not the fact you have to return to the forge but the ability to play all four). It means there's no recreating a new character and being forced to replay through the campaign to play another class at end game.

It’s hard to say if they are balanced though because you will choose to play the one or ones you most enjoy depending on their playstyle and yours.  The only one that might be slightly lacking is the Ranger as its abilities feel a little underwhelming. But on the whole, they are so distinct and different that playing one feels totally different to playing another.  This was a limitation and sour point in Destiny for me.  You could play as three different classes, yet they all felt exactly the same except for like eight or so seconds when using your ultra-ability.

One aspect that did really surprise me, was how personalisable Anthem allows you to be in regards to the look of your Javelin through their Appearance system.  You are totally free to apply whatever colours you like to any set place on the suit's armour, and can even change the textures beneath those colours.

You are given a few textures to begin with, but can earn and also buy more if you choose.  This was more in depth than I was expecting for a feature like this, and to increase the appeal, your settings are not tied to any of your gear, so when you do swap gear items, the colours or textures you chose will remain and automatically apply.  Impressive.

The other aspect that Bioware should be commended on though is the Javelins themselves because you can further personalise them in regards to how you play.  This is done through a system that allows you to choose what their abilities are based on what you equip.  A further interesting aspect is these are not unlocked via a skill tree.  You loot them through play.  You can even setup and save loadouts and name them for ease of use.

Not only do you have two gun slots, but you also have two offensive ability slots, as well as a defensive/support slot too.

In regards to the offensive slots, each Javelin has four different abilities they can equip in each slot, and two different ones for the defensive.  You start with one in each, and loot the equipment as you play as I stated.  But this system is very interchangeable, so I can imagine Bioware releasing new abilities in the future as it would be very easy for them to work them in once they are created.

As well as these aforementioned slots, each suit has a different melee ability, and an ultra-ability.  These are not changeable though.  As to if this will change in some later patch to add further diversity to the game we will have to see.

Lastly, you also have six component slots that allow you to further tweak your spec towards your playstyle.  Min/Max’s should enjoy this.  (When/if the loot problems are fixed of course.)  There are six component slots in total that unlock as you level up.

Let me tell you though, using all of these abilities feels awesome, at least for the two classes I play as (Colossus/Storm).  It’s like being in a Michael Bay movie with the explosion settings turned up to the EXTREME!  I’ve never played a game where I truly feel so powerful before, and I think this is one of the reasons Anthem hasn’t become D.O.A. despite all of its issues.

Saying this though, regardless of how fun it is to play, unless they add more content quickly and fix up the elements that are missing, and appropriately reward you correctly for the effort you put in, it will lose its shine along with the player base eventually.  To think otherwise is naive.

Another aspect that is brave/refreshing is that Anthem has no paid DLC or Paid Expansion Pass as I briefly mentioned earlier.  All the content after release will be free (So far at least).  And they have detailed the first 90 days in a roadmap outlining briefly their plans.  Some of the content shown in the above screenshot.

So how will they make their money after release?  Well, Anthem hopes to do this from cosmetic purchases.  And before you jump out of your chair in a fit of rage, all the cosmetics not only have no effect on your stats or come with abilities, but can also be bought with coins that you earn from a whole plethora of activities that are repeatable day to day, week to week and also month to month.  No one is forcing you to buy them either, as I said, they are only cosmetic and have no impact on gameplay.  No pay to win.  Let me restate.  NO PAY TO WIN.

At present, nothing at all cosmetically drops from gameplay.  A few come as rewards form the odd mission, but Bioware has stated that they are going to implement some sort of set-gear like stuff (with no stats ofc) from completing certain new content to come later.

You also earn coin each week from the alliance system, which in a nutshell, allows you to earn XP in a given week up to an alliance rank of ten.  This rank then dictates the reward you recieve in an amount of coin, but not only you, because not only do you receive this coin, but five of your friends who play Anthem too will as well and visa versa; you get their coin reward.

For example, if you and five of your friends each earn 2000 coins that week, you each get 12000 coins when the week ends.

And even if you don't have five friends playing Anthem, the system will fill the other slots with people you have randomly played or encountered.  The system picking the players, friends or not, by who has earned the highest alliance ranking that week.  This means, that even if you don't play much or at all one week, you will still receive a coin reward for your friends actions and efforts.

In regards to the end game, or Elder Game as Bioware are calling it (rolls eyes), there's three strongholds to playthrough, which are akin or similar to Destiny's strike missions and the Division's incursions.

One of which is unlocked early during the campaign, and the other two once you complete the main campaign and reach level 30, and though they are diverse in design and content, one of the strongholds is just a replay of the final campaign mission.  So really there is only two strongholds at the moment, and if we are measuring this against Destiny on release, this falls short.   

However, differently to Destiny's strike missions that only reward you at the end, Strongholds in Anthem function a little like raids because the strongholds are split into three sections, each successful completion offering you a chest and rewarding you with four to five loot drops, with a guarantee that at least one of the drops will be a ability of masterwork rarity.

(There is no guaranteed place to attain masterwork rarity weapons at present, these have a chance of dropping regardless of what you are doing and where.)

Apart from strongholds, Anthem also has several repeatable and different contracts to keep you occupied, which you collect from the three NPC's you encounter whilst doing the main campaign.  Though you can only except one normal contract from each of these mission givers, once you do one, another will pop up from the giver that is different to the last, and once you complete the NPC's side mission stories, it will unlock the Legendary Contracts too, allowing you to have in total six contracts active at any given time.  The Legendary contracts though only are available once a day, and this is because they guarantee at least one Masterwork item on completion.

Further to this, each NPC also has a loyalty rating from one to three, and rewards you upon hitting those goals.

Apart from strongholds and contracts what else is there to do in the elder game?  

Well, there's freeplay, however, due to the issues I mentioned earlier with this mode, partaking in it  can sometimes depend on how lucky you are in regards to how rewarding and fun it is.

However, if the RNG gods are smiling down on you, and you do get spawns occuring and world events to partake in, there is a healthy amount of them to do,which are diverse enough to make it compelling and engaging.  From hunter seeker activities, to defend a point, to giant Titans to kill to name but a few, they are worth doing when they spawn, if they spawn.

When I have experience these events though, I have indeed enjoyed them.  And as Bioware’s Anthem slogan goes, you are strong alone, but you are stronger together, and this wholeheartedly is true in regards to these events.

On the GM+ modes, world events will certainly test you and your group.  It is just a shame that the HUD does not better give an indication as to where and when they will occur.

Another aspect to freeplay is just exploring it.  Though there are plenty of collectables to discover here and there, the world and all the nooks are truly gorgeous.  Sometimes the views and the hidden environments you can discover is reward enough, match this with the freedom you have in your suit to fly around, really gives you a sense of being able to go where no one else has been before.  And if we are still comparing Anthem to Destiny, the world functions more like the world in the Division, meaning you can move around the whole world without having to load out and load back in, excluding the Hidden Places.

Speaking of which, if you do fancy some guaranteed combat, simply travel to one of these hidden places that are marked on the map and enter them.  Not only is each different, they take you to very diverse underground destinations.  

For those of you who are familiar with Destiny, these Hidden Places are like Lost Sectors.  Entering Hidden Places, like Lost Sectors will take you deeper into the world where you face growing difficulty enemies to kill, normally resulting in elites and Legendary enemies that have a higher chance of dropping better rarity loot.

These Hidden Places are difficult in their own right, and are definitely worth your time just for exploration sake if nothing else.

Freeplay excites me in all fairness.  I can see this mode becoming something special if Bioware can implement and build upon it to a point where it no longer is frustrating.  If they can tie this in with Contracts, cutting out the need to return to the Fort to start a new one each time, it will step from the shadows and into the light for sure.  Till then, freeplay, though it can be rewarding and fun, most certainly needs more time to cook.

One aspect to the game that I was unsure about though when I found out about it, was XP and how the game calculates it.   You see, you don’t technically get XP for killing anything, you get XP for achieving medals.  You can view the medals in the menu at any time whilst in game and your progress towards them.  They reset too on each and every expedition allowing you to earn them again.  For example, perform enough multi-kills with your ultimate and you will achieve a medal.   Kill enough enemies with melee and you will be awarded with a medal.  It is these earned medals that translate into XP.  This XP only being awarded when the expedition ends meaning you never level up whilst in game.

However, as a side effect of this, there comes a point in any given game activity, where you cannot possibly earn any more XP.  If you earn all the medals, you get nothing XP wise more.  Meaning you have to end the expedition and rejoin, more a problem in freeplay, but still, this isn't the best design decision if you ask me.

Also, as of right now, suit earned XP does nothing once you hit 30.  Bioware have stated that soon suit XP post 30 will feed into some unexplained Pilot Master system, but even Destiny on release shipped with a feature that meant earnt XP after reaching the level cap wasn’t wasted.  Remember though, you also earn alliance XP for doing activities, which does go towards something, so your XP earned in game isn't completely wasting XP.

Another aspect adding to the Elder Game is the challenges and feats.  Feats seemed broken to me at the time of writing this.  They appear greyed out.  But challenges there are aplenty and they do work.

Every weapon, every ability, every kill, in fact, practically everything you do counts towards one challenge or another.  Completing one tier in something will grant a reward and unlock a second tier to complete.  Most that I’ve seen have three tiers.   The rewards ranging from crafting mats, coin and cosmetic related stuff.  It’s not going to blow your mind understand, but it does encourage you to try new weapons and abilities to complete these challenges and feats.

Anthem also has a crafting system that feeds into the game in a couple of ways. 

Firstly, the contract NPC’s will reward new crafting blueprints as your earn loyalty with them. 

The mat’s themselves come from dismantling unwanted items, but also from farmable nodes found in the world that you can interact with.

Once you have these things, crafting is pretty simple, and will allow you to craft an item to a chosen rarity, if you have the blueprint for it.  This is where the random stat systems come into play, because Anthem seems aimed at you crafting your own items to try and get better stat rolls, or god rolls, but due to the broken aspects around the stats, this can be frustrating.

In regards to your gear, all the items and weapons you equip will have a gear score, but Anthem makes no attempt to tell your what this gear score means and what it actually changes stat wise about your Javelin.  In Destiny, for example, hovering over your gear rating gives you some information as to what effect this does.  It would be nice in Anthem if I knew what my gear rating actually equated to, the bonus it applied and what not to my base level, and as I mentioned earlier, Anthem has no stat menu. A key feature for a game like this!

A lot of Anthem is like this though.  Key features ranging from small to large are either not explained or totally missing.  

For instance:

Take combos that are a key feature that really isn’t explained that requires you to prime a target using abilities that apply a prime buff, like fire or ice, then using a detonating ability on said target to trigger a combo that does massive damage, spreading the effect of the prime and the explosive damage to other targets if in range.  Once you understand the system, it truly becomes a powerful tool, but on Anthem's release, abilities didn't even tell you which primed and which detonated. Another oversight!

Inscriptions are another example of a system not explained. These relate to your stats.  On you items you will see two icons.  A cog and a little guy-like icon.  The cog means the stat applies to the item only, whereas the guy icon stat applies to everything related on your Javelin.  This is not explained at all as far as I can tell, and given the lack of a stat menu, it not only makes it harder to figure out, but also harder to truly figure out the best mix of weapons and gear based on these stats.

SUMMARY

Anthem is an unfinished game.  Its only saving grace is that it looks and plays brilliantly though.  If the kinks, missing features and quality of life improvements along with the extra content that we’ve been promised gets implemented, Anthem could truly be something special, and like Diablo 3, may see many seasons to come. 

However, is it and was it worth the asking price of admission?   

It depends:  

From a quality perspective, I'd have to say no, it's too unbalanced and broken in some key areas, not to mention missing things you would expect a game like this to have.

However, if Anthem is truly going to be a game where the content afterwards is going to be free, then the initial price is worth it.

But, unless the cosmetics start bringing in some serious cash, I imagine they'll be some form of paid expansion at some point.  I can envisage their model being a little like World of Warcraft's:  You buy the base game and each expansion, but between the expansions all the new content between is free.

Right now though, if you are still on the fence, check back in a couple of months when it's been patched and had more content added to it, it might just end up being your favorite game worthy of not only your time but your money too.

For those of you though who remember or even played Earth and Beyond... there is a little voice within my head that is whispering:  "I hope we don't see yet another sunset!"

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