Shared world games are hard to understand, given the balance between single player and multiplayer, but when Bioware announced Anthem was entering that world, a developer known for their rich and vast single player stories, people took notice. Now that the game is out though, how do the masters of digital story telling stack up in a genre not usually theirs?

In Anthem you are a Freelancer, someone who is willing to step out of the safety of the walled cities and venture into the ever changing wild, to stop new threats from emerging, old threats from returning and learning more about the world itself. As you are a newly joined member of a squad, your first mission see’s you head into a shaper event, called the Heart of Rage, but as expected things do not go well and when almost everyone is killed, the people’s faith in the Freelancers is shattered and those surviving folks, all go their own ways. The next time we see ourselves, is on a simple mission to discover some strange readings on some alert markers, which turns into something more and then the game begins in earnest. The problem is the story is quite predictable, there is an old grizzled Freelancer who has a story of a horrible group of people that he thinks are making a return and low and behold, they are.

Making the story interesting is not the plot itself, it is almost a by the number story, but the characters themselves that you interact with. The first person you meet, once you return to Fort Tarsis, is Zoe the mechanic who helps keep your Javelin in top condition, then you meet Owen in person. As your Cypher, Owen is on comms to help you out in a mission, be it with intel, hacking support or plucky one-liners, he is there to support you, just as all other Freelancers have a Cypher of them own. Soon though, you will meet Tassyn, who will give you a mission that kicks things off in earnest and then soon you will meet Brin, Mattias, Neeson and more. As you interact with them, a lot of the conversations are scripted events, but eventually the game will ask you to make choices, which help define how others see you and how things play out.

The problem with these moments is that unlike other Bioware games, unless the character has something to say to you, you can’t speak with them, leaving the characters to just standing there, as if waiting for anything to happen. Now I don’t have an issue with them not having much current to say, but the complete lack of interaction is so against the Bioware grain, that it is a hard thing to see, there is no chance to build world lore, learn secrets or anything else, the game simply just has them standing there. Even other denizens of Fort Tarsis have things to say as you walk by them, sure they repeat a bit, but it’s provides the city with a sense of life that the others fail to deliver. My main issue with the characters, both those you interact with and those you don’t, is that neither has any impact to the city itself, those changes come from your actions in missions, which means the city rarely changes, leaving you looking at the same thing over and over again, for a lot of the game.

One aspect I liked and hated though, was how the game rolled things out to you, so many games, Bioware ones included, have in the past thrown almost everything at you in the first hour, from movement to weapons, sub-systems and more, leaving you overwhelmed with the amount of things to learn, Anthem does the opposite. It takes the approach of giving you a single thing to learn, giving you a mission or task to complete that relies upon that fact, before then giving you another, the best example is that of Anthem customisation. As you complete some of the earlier missions, you can bust open these crystallised mounds, which might drop ember, but once you hit Level 5 and Free Roam is unlocked for you, a mission will be available from a shopkeeper that deals in Anthem mods, to go and collect some more, giving you a reason to venture out into Free Roam. It is a small touch, but it is how most of them the game is progressed, unlocking Anthem is also done in stages, your second at level 8 then your third at 16 and so on.

The downside to this sort of roll out, is that unless you power through things, there is a sense that the game is devoid of things to see or do, as the same locations are shown for the most part until you progress enough. One example is that until you meet Brin, you will only be allowed into two parts of Fort Tarsis, the market and the Cypher hall, but once you are introduced to Brin, you will be able explore more of the fort and while it does not take long to do that, it is just annoying that the game has decided that we are not allowed to explore the entire Fort yet. The same rolls over to gameplay as well, which is a shame, there are plenty of missions to undertake in the game, but some require you to be set levels, standard stuff really, but there are a host of missions that even if you see them, you can’t do them until you get to a set point.

Thankfully, once you are in a mission, the game becomes a lot more fun, sort of, but no matter what else you think, taking to the skies in your Javelin is amazing, at any time. Much like Destiny, a lot of your actions are set to cooldown times, which is fine, you can carry two weapons and each Javelin has an assortment of secondary weapons, tied to the should buttons, for example the default on the Ranger class is a grenade and homing rocket. Staying put in Anthem is bad news, as a stationary target can be overwhelmed very easily, so you can dash around the place, but the fun can come in hovering above the action, moving around ever so slightly, taking out enemies from above. As you engage the Scars, Dominion and local wildlife, you will add power to your super, a move that can lead to some devastating results when used at the right time, once used, you will need to wait for it to charge up again.

Understanding when you can use your abilities is crucial, as using anything means you need to wait for it to become available again, which is not so bad, until you start dealing with armoured enemies or larger folks. It is a balancing act, one that is sadly not explained all that well at the start, for instance, you have a melee attack, which can also be used while in the air to deliver a massive blow to the ground, but it only is used up if you hit someone. Should the target move away, or you not be in range when you attempt it, the cooldown is not triggered, but if it hits, you have to wait a moment if you want to use it again. The catch with this, is that in most games’ melee attacks are used to get you out of a spot of trouble, if enemies get to close, here though you have nothing like that, well except the squad the you roll out with.

Squads are the most important part of the gameplay, as heading out with support makes missions more fun, but most importantly survivable, as the game punishes you if you play solo. If you head out into a mission with your privacy settings set to public, which is the default, you will find yourself joined up with at least one other player, whilst in the middle of a mission, other players won’t join to often as the game seems intent on keep things even for all players, rather than giving someone half of an experience. While you can play the game without a headset, the game does offer up some basic emotes for you to use, I found not using a headset was more fun, because you had to be aware of what your squad was doing, so you could provide help if you needed to. Seeing how the squad performs at the end of a mission is fun as well, because if you are someone who runs in guns blazing, you might find yourself earning the most xp, or not, depending on how well you were doing. If you chose to run in private, you can invite friends to join up, but you can also go out on your own completely, except in Free Roam, that is always public, but going solo in mission is not a good idea as the game does not account for there being only one of you in it. Playing solo, whilst supported is not advised as the game makes no changes for you, the same number of enemies are around, with same drop rates for ammo and such, the same challenges and objectives exist, but with no support at all from the game, which is a real shame.

Flying around in Free Roam though, is a heck load of fun, purely because you can see the world as you want, see how other players are doing and then randomly be shot by a group of scars that are loitering around some ruins. Of course, Free Roam is best used to obtain materials like embers, but there are also world bosses like the Titan and Ursix, the latter one you should be familiar with from the opening of the game. Taking on a Titan is not something I can suggest, unless you have a great level and a squad of equally levelled folks as they are strong and worthy of their name, even worse they can deal out damage quite quickly, leaving you to struggle if you are on your lonesome. The part that I liked most about attempting to take on a Titan, which did not go my way in the end, is that it takes you off the ground, unlike a lot of other fights, where being on the ground is standard, taking to the skies is your best chance to dealing out the damage and seeing other folks flying around you, trying to take down the same mega boss is great fun.

One part of the game that is not great are the visuals, simple because of one single part, the faces of characters, they are suffering from the same weird look the Mass Effect Andromeda had, but even worse, they lack expression. The first time you enter Fort Tarsis, your only experience with human characters up til now is with those from the cutscenes, so seeing the face of Zoe as she tells you off for hurting the Javelin is quite the shock, as the level of detail is no-where near what it was. Sadly, it is not just the lack of effort on the faces that is shocking, but Fort Tarsis is impacted by this, now I understand that the Fort is being rebuilt as people slowly make their way back, but there are far to many odd things lying about, though the upside is that if you stop moving around, the game looks amazing.

Even better, once you are out of the Fort and exploring the world, the game looks amazing, the gameplay runs a solid rate, to which I am grateful, even when explosions were going off like fireworks, the game looked great. The locations might be limited in overall theme, but there is no denying how stunning they all look, from the creatures, to the ruins, the trees and beyond, everything coalesces to create something worthy of exploring. While the enemy designs are fantastic, more than the handful of bi-pedal guys would have been welcome, as you will see the same ones over and over again, which takes away from the majesty that the game has.

The other side of the presentation equation is the audio and like always, Bioware have delivered, the mains core of Anthem is one I love to listen to, on its own, its grand, but also inviting. Taking that approach the entire score has moments where it is slow and melodic, inviting you into he world even more, but when the action kicks in, it also kicks up a notch, keeping pace with the on-screen events. The other part of the audio is of course the performances and the cast that they have assembled have done a wonderful job, not only in making you want to believe in them, but also in that they make you think they could be real people.

Anthem might have a lot of teething issues, server disconnects, bland missions and story and lack of things to do, but each of the parts on their own make sense, it is just the coming together where it struggles. While the game basically punishes you if you play solo, playing with people even randoms can increase the fun exponentially, and while I would like the game to move a little faster at times, when you get in that suit and blast out into the world, all the bad falls away and you get a game that is fun.

Thanks to Electronic Arts for supplying the game for review.