BioWare's new IP: Anthem

Visually looks good but feels - I don't know, like it lacks substance. Maybe its the terrible voice acting.
 
The game looks nice to me, but if there is no single player off line mode built into the game from the start there is no way I am buying it. I don't care if it has solo play in a multiplayer environment that doesn't count IMO. I only care that once MP dies (and almost all of them do at some point) and the servers are turned off, I can still play the game I bought. It's my number 1 requirement to buy any game.
 

This is one of the producers at Bioware Edmonton feeling out people on Anthem and its name.

I couldn't help but agree with at least some of the responses he is fielding so far.

The two largest akeways, at least in America, are the name Anthem means "crappy health insurance" and/or "death/at the cost of Mass Effect and beloved franchises" far and away. That isn't just trolls and baiters, either. Far from it.

I feel sorry for them because ultimately this is on EA corporate. They saw Activision and Ubisoft go for a concept and they had to have their version of it. Why they tapped Bioware Edmonton vs any number of other talents under that huge umbrella of theirs is perplexing but ultimately remains to come out in the wash.
 
Meeho said:
As if bashing EA or scripted fluff trailers is so unreasonable and unfounded.
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When its every twelve year old on reddit screaming the same thing it just becomes lazy-bandwagon and derivative. These big publishers have lots of studios, some of them better than others, so it's lazy to broadbrush them all as - in this case - "sux cuz EA".

I prefer the slightly less popular but more adult approach which is take each game case by case and judge on its own merits.
 
DPI said:
I prefer the slightly less popular but more adult approach which is take each game case by case and judge on its own merits.
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That's fair. I prefer the approach of learning from past mistakes/burns before giving them the benefit of the doubt.
 
Blade-Runner said:
The graphics are spectacular, but I don't trust EA or Bioware to actually fully deliver on these visual representations, and more importantly it is the type of game I suspected it would be, i.e. a Destiny clone. The scripted banter is so hamfisted and contrived that, as others have observed, it already smells a like The Division in terms of the devs trying to sell the co-op interactions as a substitute for a compelling narrative driven game.
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Yes, they really spent a lot of time polishing the graphics of this 4 minute CGI movie.

EDIT: My bad: 7 minute movie. It felt like only 4 when I watched it live.
 
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Looks amazing and I am psyched! This is what ME:A should have been. So this game is like 2 years out???
 
Armenius said:
Yes, they really spent a lot of time polishing the graphics of this 4 minute CGI movie.

EDIT: My bad: 7 minute movie. It felt like only 4 when I watched it live.
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Right.

This is E3. It's about hype, uber marketing, smoke and mirrors, cotton candy, and teases. Anthem may go out even as far as "fiscal 2019." It's essentially vaporware for now.

I hope somehow Bioware brings their strengths to the table.

The "Destiny concept" in and of itself puts limits down on the kinds of deep stories and characters you can make but certainly they can do a lot more than the absolutely non existent story of the first Destiny game.

A "best of both worlds" hybrid game would be great. Here's hoping.
 
Q-BZ said:
Right.

This is E3. It's about hype, uber marketing, smoke and mirrors, cotton candy, and teases. Anthem may go out even as far as "fiscal 2019." It's essentially vaporware for now.

I hope somehow Bioware brings their strengths to the table.

The "Destiny concept" in and of itself puts limits down on the kinds of deep stories and characters you can make but certainly they can do a lot more than the absolutely non existent story of the first Destiny game.

A "best of both worlds" hybrid game would be great. Here's hoping.
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Exactly. This trailer was a proof of concept, at best. Everyone here needs to temper their expectations. I can say that the concept looks intriguing, though, as I can totally get behind Bioware's vision of Destiny. But I'm not going to possibly get hyped until I see some actual real time gameplay.
 
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I completely understand everyones jadedness here regarding new up ands coming games/trailers/hype etc. Yes, we've all seen it many times before and been let down I get it. I however, still like to get sucked in sometimes it makes you feel like a kid again. It makes you look at things with virgin eyes if you will. Honestly it's alot more fun. This whole old guy been there done that ho hum I don't believe it till I see it is fucking boring and makes you old. That's my 2 cents.
 
Savoy said:
I completely understand everyones jadedness here regarding new up ands coming games/trailers/hype etc. Yes, we've all seen it many times before and been let down I get it. I however, still like to get sucked in sometimes it makes you feel like a kid again. It makes you look at things with virgin eyes if you will. Honestly it's alot more fun. This whole old guy been there done that ho hum I don't believe it till I see it is fucking boring and makes you old. That's my 2 cents.
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This. It's like there's outright anger every time a new game is announced.
 
Comixbooks said:
Looks really nice.... Firefall mmo realistic style toss in some titanfail.
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Realistic... Except that gravity apparently has no influence on the planet or its inhabitants in this game. Unless the suits are powered by the ubiquitous "space magic."
 
Yea, the flight looks IronMan hollywood BS, but I'm inclined to say what the heck. And the big cargo(?) robot's death collapse didn't look good. But we'll see when they start releasing actual gameplay.
 
That is so crazy when he hits the water it's like it's another map of the game at 3:22
 
Yea, that looked good and I didn't see any silly oxygen meter pop up. For that matter, I loved how minimalistic the HUD is, hopefully it's configurable...

Heh- I showed the 'gameplay' trailer to a gamer at work and asked if he got a Pacifi Rim vibe- he thought it was more Game of Thrones. Not sure how that works...
 
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What would this game be like to avoid the label of grind or MMO grind? Why not just start a new character or try weird guns instead of min-maxing?
 
Q-BZ said:
This is one of the producers at Bioware Edmonton feeling out people on Anthem and its name.

I couldn't help but agree with at least some of the responses he is fielding so far.
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I've got so many answers to that question. What does the anthem name mean to me now?

  • Giant waste of talent
  • Moneygrab attempt
  • Destiny clone
  • Grindfest
 
M76 said:
I've got so many answers to that question. What does the anthem name mean to me now?

  • Giant waste of talent
  • Moneygrab attempt
  • Destiny clone
  • Grindfest
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We'll see. The game is damn near two years out. If they give us a "Destiny meets Bioware goodness" combo it could be good. I hope so.
 
Q-BZ said:
We'll see. The game is damn near two years out. If they give us a "Destiny meets Bioware goodness" combo it could be good. I hope so.
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Good for those who like multiplayer. I don't consider myself among those. I don't want to share game worlds with random strangers killing my immersion.
They talked about being able to play single, the question is will it be a shoehorned in totally dull experience or not?

I know I didn't like what I saw so far from gameplay. Ironically it looked too much like Andromeda.
 
M76 said:
Good for those who like multiplayer. I don't consider myself among those. I don't want to share game worlds with random strangers killing my immersion.
They talked about being able to play single, the question is will it be a shoehorned in totally dull experience or not?

I know I didn't like what I saw so far from gameplay. Ironically it looked too much like Andromeda.
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I didn't feel like the open world detracted from the experience in the first Destiny while I was completing missions by myself. It actually makes it feel more alive. The only real annoying part is running into areas where events take place and you have a dozen people camping the spot. The good thing, though, is that loot is softcore in that game. But if you need to kill certain enemy types it could stretch out a mission that should only take 10 minutes to a half hour or more.

Let's just hope that Bioware doesn't do anything stupid in this regard.
 
Q-BZ said:
http://www.dualshockers.com/anthem-bioware-solo-play-setting-combat-story-and-more/

Some good news potentially.
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Skimmed it, but to me it read like marketing BS to say:

We've made a Borderlands that can be played offline!

And to be fair, Borderlands was fine offline. But it lacked the narrative to keep it up there. At least the map areas were all fairly unique which kept the repetitive combat from getting to you. This game looks a bit more like BL2 (I only got 15 or so hours into it). Go back and fourth, scavenge for gear for no real reason, fight the same damn respawning outposts again and again, rinse repeat. Sorry, not really interested Bioware. It looks like another game with a bunch of shit that just gets in the way of having fun. "Freedom" and "tell your own story" is marketing for running around a big empty map, finding new outposts of the same enemies to kill over and over again, many set piece structures repeated, and the option to choose the order of fetch quests with your friends. Yay, you and Billybob who has a troll face avatar covering have your screen every time he kills an enemy and picks up a virtual stick have now made your own unique story. Because they couldn't get a creative mind to write out a good script.

I hate social games. :p
 
Looks like the writer who wrote Imperial Agent story line in SWTOR is onboard too. Drew Karpyshyn too. This might be good.
 
It the map is as empty as Mad Max but it's jungle and PC has more than two guns, sign me up.
 
Armenius said:
I didn't feel like the open world detracted from the experience in the first Destiny while I was completing missions by myself. It actually makes it feel more alive. The only real annoying part is running into areas where events take place and you have a dozen people camping the spot. The good thing, though, is that loot is softcore in that game. But if you need to kill certain enemy types it could stretch out a mission that should only take 10 minutes to a half hour or more.

Let's just hope that Bioware doesn't do anything stupid in this regard.
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That's the exact reason I avoid MMOs like the devil. Nothing breaks immersion more when you see 625 people crowding around the same NPC. And when you get missions like go here and kill 5 blue 5 red and 5 yellow monsters. The trailer didn't show much but to me it felt like exactly that type of assignment.
I also don't like games like Ark or Conan, where the game drops you in the world and leaves you to your own devices with no backstory, no reason for being there, and no purpose.
 
Fwiw I'm far more excited about this game than Destiny 2. Resemblance to Borderlands and rendered by the gorgeous Frostbite engine, yes please.
 
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Looks pretty but vacant. Wait and see. Still really pissed about them moving resources from ME to this.
 
Yea- Destiny 2 isn't floating my boat. It looks slow and ... cartoony? I'm loving this art style, and the speed of movement makes me thing Firefall / Warframe, which might be great.
 
I think the real question is going to be how the game plays. Bioware will need to seriously step up their gameplay in order to make the loop of this kind of game worked. If this plays like ME3 or Andromeda it simply isn't going to be good enough long term. I'm not even sure if copying Battlefield style gunplay would be enough, but maybe.
 
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Derangel said:
I think the real question is going to be how the game plays. Bioware will need to seriously step up their gameplay in order to make the loop of this kind of game worked. If this plays like ME3 or Andromeda it simply isn't going to be good enough long term. I'm not even sure if copying Battlefield style gunplay would be enough, but maybe.
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If it plays like Andromeda but has the OT's writing quality, then I'm fully onboard.
It has a single-player so I'm not sure how much of a "long term" we can expect.
 
TaintedSquirrel said:
If it plays like Andromeda but has the OT's writing quality, then I'm fully onboard.
It has a single-player so I'm not sure how much of a "long term" we can expect.
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Andromeda is the best playing game Bioware has ever made, but if they're trying to do Destiny or the Division in some way it needs to be better. I'm interested either way, I liked Andromeda, but I hope they can really hit it out of the park with this on all levels.
 
TaintedSquirrel said:
If it plays like Andromeda but has the OT's writing quality, then I'm fully onboard.
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Better forget any hope of writing quality...

http://www.pcgamer.com/bioware-boss...wars-or-the-marvel-universe/#article-comments

However, in a recent interview with the CBC, Aaryn Flynn, general manager of BioWare Edmonton, described the game as "science fantasy" and suggested that players shouldn't expect quite the same commitment to the nuts-and-bolts of the story as they got from Mass Effect.

"[It's] very much like Star Wars, very much like the Marvel Universe, where you see a lot of amazing things happening, but we don't worry too much about why they're happening, or how they're happening, the science of it," Flynn said. "Mass Effect is more our real hardcore science fiction IP. This one is much more about just having fun in a game world that is lush and exotic and really sucks you in."

Flynn said his interest in making a game like Anthem is rooted in a desire to be able to play with his sons, a "life situation" he said other people at the studio are encountering as well. In a similar vein, he also noted that ideas for Anthem's game world, despite how fantastical it is, often come from "our own personal lives."
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So a grindy looter shooter with even less narrative elements than The Division or Destiny.
 
Even The Division had sciency stuff. Integral to the story, even, and one of the few things that made the 'single player' grind worth working through.

That's also a part of what I like about science fiction: currently obsessed about The Expanse series, watched the shows and reading the second book (and plan on reading all).

It's a further disappointment here. They don't have to do it right- Mass Effect didn't do it 'right'- but they should try.
 
The Division's wafer thin plot is so intangible, uninteresting and unimportant that I am currently struggling to even reach the end game. The boring game mechanics don't help, but the lack of a compelling narrative to guide you through the game makes the experience even more insipid and dull.
 
I won't claim The Division was 'good', but at least some of the tech details were interesting, as much as you had to hunt for them.
 
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