Anthem tells the story of freelancers who protect the people from enemies and monsters. In early concepts, however, the game was supposed to focus on the survival of a ship on an alien planet.
Where does the other story come from? In early concepts, Anthem was supposed to tell a very different story than the one we have seen since the release. This can be read in the art book for Anthem, where some developers talk about the game’s backstory. Here you can view some pages of the book in the Google Play Store.
In the beginning, when Anthem was nothing more than “Project Dylan”, the game was supposed to revolve more around survival in a hostile world.
What was the story? In early drafts, the players were supposed to come from a futuristic Earth. With their ship, they would have crashed in the “Bermuda Triangle of space” and landed on an alien planet.
The survivors of the crash had to settle in this new, dangerous world. The Javelin were initially nothing more than suits used for space travel, which were then repurposed into combat suits.
The team even considered that players could salvage parts of the crashed spaceship to build structures or improve their suits.
A small glimpse into an early stage of Anthem, or rather Project Dylan, was already given in a teaser for E3 2014:
What is the story of Anthem now? The players take on the role of a freelancer who protects the people of Fort Tarsis in their Javelin. The world was created by the “Shapers” but is still incomplete.
For its creation, the Shapers used the “Hymn of Creation”, which no one really knows where it comes from. However, the hymn cannot be controlled and continues to create – or destroy – even without the Shapers.
Even now, Anthem still has surprising stories to offer:
