Our author Schuhmann has now spent 25 hours in Anthem and has completed the campaign. He is quite excited about Anthem. He understands the criticism about the loot system – but he believes the harsh reviews in the tests were undeserved.
This is where I stand in Anthem: I completed the campaign last night and finished all the side missions available up to that point. This took me about 25 hours and I have reached level 29, so I’m only a few side missions away from the endgame. During this time, I only played the Storm, the Mage Javelin.
With 25 hours I am rather slow in terms of the gameplay length of Anthem compared to others. Since February 15th, I have been playing every evening for between one and two hours.
This is how I liked it: I am impressed by the first 25 hours. I know that many had issues with loading screens and bugs – but I haven’t encountered that on my PC. Anthem is fully installed on a Samsung SSD. Apparently, this €70 solution fixes the eternally long loading screens that many complain about.
Only Origin, EA’s great platform, annoyed me two or three times. After patches, I have often had to reinstall Origin completely.
The way I play Anthem works excellently: I play solo but always use matchmaking to tackle missions with three random people. After the “Grind Quest”, everything went smoothly, I actually had no stumbling blocks.
I always completed all available side quests before continuing with the main quest and dutifully listened to the dialogues, but sometimes I would skip ahead: Not every storyline in Fort interested me. And sometimes I just wanted to get back into the action too eagerly.
These are the major strengths of Anthem:
- I am particularly impressed by the “Instant Matchmaking,” which always finds me a group for the activity right away. So far, I have mostly been lucky with the random groups. I have even had some cool and smooth runs through the strongholds. This “matchmaking for everything” is really great.
- I also feel the “Power Surge” with increasing level – an important factor for me in RPGs.
- The battles and the way I fly through the world still feel really great after 25 hours – I look forward to every new mission.
- I find the dialogues in the Fort and the colorful cast of supporting characters well done. Not every storyline is fantastic, but I follow them with interest and often have to smile. Characters like Dax or Sentinel Brin are well done, also great synchronized in German. I think the main story and the characters in it with Owen, Haluk, and Faye are really good.
I cannot share these criticisms of Anthem: Shortly after the early launch of Anthem, much criticism was aimed at the game. Currently, it stands at 60% on Metacritic.
The major criticisms that the missions are “repetitive” and the story is not “BioWare-worthy” are ones I can understand from my perspective, but I do not share them:
- I did not expect to experience a story in Anthem as I did 20 years ago in RPG classics. The story I experienced was entertaining and absolutely fine. Although the dialogue options are merely window-dressing and do not really contribute to the story. But I know that from online RPGs.
- The missions still put me in a good mood after 25 hours and I look forward to them because I find the gameplay here extremely strong and successful.
- Bugs and issues that others have with the game, I have not experienced.
- The world seems interesting and exciting to me. I find flying from point to point in a mission simply fantastic.
I agree with these points in the criticism: Still, there are two issues I want to address. These are criticisms I have frequently read about Anthem and that I can understand and share.
Inactive waiting for help
This is a problem in gameplay: When you are dead, you are often left inactive in Anthem. Because in harsh fights, there is often a respawn ban.
You can’t even really watch other players or do anything, but have to wait until someone picks you up.
This is a frustrating experience. Although it was in the “more intense battles” that I had team members who repaired me, but the situation just does not feel right. It’s not fun.
This would be a solution: Anthem should at least allow a player to crawl. The suit is broken, and you can’t move “powerfully” in it anymore, okay. But at least crawling to a better position should be possible.
Too few decisions with loot
This is a problem with motivation: The loot in Anthem, in the early, mid, and late game is simply too boring for such a game – whether you see it as a loot shooter or an MMORPG lite.
The type of loot you find depends in Anthem on your level, and in the first numerous hours, you will be heavily limited.
After 25 hours in Anthem, I have had to make almost no decisions regarding loot. Because the items I found were basically always the same, just at a higher level and with different inscriptions, which I did not pay much attention to.
Masterwork weapons with cool bonuses I have never found – apparently, they only start appearing regularly at level 29 or 30.
I eventually settled for two skills for the Storm at level 10 (Ice Storm/Fireball) and then just took the weapons with the highest level.
Since you practically do not find any “special items” until level 29, but only standard items, the loot is simply boring because it hardly requires any decisions from me.
I did not feel that it made any difference which weapon I played with or which inscriptions were on it.
After I had managed the components and skills somewhat and decided on a setup, that part of the game was already completed early, and I just kept replacing one item with another of a higher level and took what weapons were available.
Here the comparison with games like Destiny or Diablo comes to mind, where you quickly get special items with extraordinary bonuses that require decisions:
- Do I want to use a weapon with a higher level?
- or do I keep my exotic or legendary weapon with the great bonus ability?
Such decisions about my setup and loot are what I would have wished for Anthem. Apparently, that only starts from level 30.
25 hours in a loot shooter without having to make such decisions is too long for me.
This would be a solution: Simply allow low-level masterwork weapons with special bonuses. Hopefully, this will come with further changes to the loot system.
Anthem from an online player’s perspective
This is why I see Anthem differently than many testers: I feel like I approached Anthem very differently than many testers who had to evaluate the game after just a few days.
Often I got a “Things were better before” vibe from these tests.
I do not long for BioWare to develop RPGs like they did 20 years ago. I played those back then as well, but now I am a convinced online gamer.
I long for interesting new gaming experiences in online games. Anthem provided me with that in the first 25 hours.
As a fan of online games, I place a lot of value on core gameplay and a pleasant gaming experience. Here, Anthem shines for me.
The game has a lot of room for improvement, especially regarding loot and polish, I’m sure. But for me, this is not an “unfinished game”, but a cycle I have been going through with online games for almost 20 years: Games start with a solid core, then grow and hopefully get better. And it’s fun to watch and accompany them.
So far, I have not regretted the first 25 hours in Anthem. I am curious to see how it continues. In the endgame, there are supposed to be difficulties and many accuse Anthem of being “too short.”
I will then inform you here on MeinMMO whether my assessment of Anthem will change significantly after the endgame.
