After a new event about Anthem, there are numerous gameplay videos showcasing the legendary Contracts and even a Stronghold with Grandmaster difficulty. We get our first glimpse into the endgame of Anthem.
Recently, the EA Game Changer event took place. At this event, participants could play Anthem themselves. The legendary Contracts and a Stronghold on Grandmaster 1 difficulty were showcased.
The gameplay provides an impression of how two of the most important endgame activities in Anthem will unfold and what players can expect. However, the reactions to these scenes are rather muted, with many expressing concerns about the long-term motivation of the shared-world shooter, which is designed as a game-as-a-service.
The first gameplay video is over an hour long and comes from YouTuber Chorypheus. It shows the new Stronghold “Temple of Scar”:
Grandmaster Strongholds Are an Important Part of the Endgame
This shows the gameplay: A new Stronghold Dungeon can be seen. In total, there will be three different Strongholds at the launch of Anthem.
This is a kind of mini-raid, a larger-scale mission. You fight your way through an underground mine and complete tasks until you reach the boss at the end. This is a huge, four-legged machine that is constantly protected by a shield from an external device.
The entire mission is played at the Grandmaster rank. That is the fourth of the total 6 known difficulty levels that will be in Anthem. In the demo that everyone could play, there were only Easy, Normal, and Hard.
These are the difficulty levels of Anthem:
- Easy
- Normal
- Hard
- Grandmaster
- Grandmaster 2
- Grandmaster 3
The Grandmaster ranks can only be unlocked in the endgame with the maximum level of 30. Enemies will then have more health and deal more damage. However, defeating them also results in a significantly higher chance of rare and thus better loot.
Thus, one of the main activities in the endgame will be to repeatedly play missions on higher difficulty levels, similar to Diablo 3 with the Greater Rifts and Portals.
In addition to Strongholds, legendary Contracts are also an important part of the endgame of Anthem. In the video from venturebeat.com, one can first see such a mission:
Legendary Contracts, the Random Missions of Anthem
This shows the gameplay: For the first time, there is an insight into a legendary Contract. Contracts are missions that always differ in objectives, locations, and processes, and are newly generated. As part of the endgame, they also reward you accordingly with rare loot.
After accepting the Contract in Fort Tarsis, you are sent to the mission target in the open world. Once there, you must complete specific tasks.
In the mission shown in the video, it is about retrieving Shaper technology. Several waves of enemies must be dealt with. At the end, a big mini-boss awaits. As a reward, various items like crafting materials, loot, and coins are offered.
Gaming Sites Express Concern About Endgame
This is how gaming sites react to the endgame: Since this event, many journalists from various gaming magazines have expressed their concerns about the endgame of Anthem. Will it provide enough engagement at launch? Can it motivate in the long term?
These questions can only be answered with the release of the full versions. Tom Phillips from Eurogamer.net, who also writes about Destiny, has not yet drawn a definitive conclusion in his endgame preview:
The more I play, the more I feel like I’m getting two games at once – a mix of Destiny-like missions embedded in a Bioware story bubble. Both are good, but do they work together?
Phillips takes a look into the future. Bioware will face a challenge, as it wants to satisfy the hardcore players who are eagerly awaiting raids. At the same time, it wants to keep the story fans on board and also offer something new narratively.
James Davonport from PCGamer. believes that the endgame of Anthem needs more work. One of his biggest criticisms is that the difficulty levels merely spawn more enemies and that these are significantly stronger overall. The AI behavior does not change. This diminishes the variety when repeating activities, as enemies are easy to predict.
As an example, the mini-boss from the legendary Contract is mentioned: “The legendary Luminary (A mobile Scar tank) takes over 5 minutes of sustained fire and skill spam to take down. From the first minute, we had mastered his move set.”
As a result, the fight can become quite monotonous. He will definitely play Anthem and then see how it all develops. He sees parallels to the early days of Destiny, which also struggled with endgame issues.
The comparison between Anthem and Destiny often comes up. Our author Schuhmann, however, sees the origin differently.
