BioWare's New Multiplayer Shooter 'Anthem' Looks Stunning
Exosuits, flying, and deadly monsters are coming in 2018.
While Electronic Arts has kept BioWare’s brand new IP under wraps for the last few years, the video game developers best known for their work on the Mass Effect series stepped forward yesterday during EA Play with a brief teaser trailer, revealing more of what we now know as Anthem, a sci-fi looking title set in a dangerous, post-apocalyptic world before prompting players to tune into Xbox’s E3 press conference for more.
During Microsoft’s show on Sunday, Jon Warner from BioWare concluded the presentation with an extended look at Anthem, and boy does the game look like a promising experience.
As we suspected, Anthem puts you and your friends in the shoes of what BioWare is calling Freelancers. Their job is to venture beyond the safety of Fort Tarsus in search of resources and valuable materials while combating those who are deemed a threat to humanity.
To survive the dangers beyond the safety of the fort, players will have to pilot exosuits called Javelins.
To do so, players will be piloting mechanized suits of armor called Javelins, which are entirely customizable and feature different archetypes with various abilities to help them fulfill dedicated combat roles like tanking, flanking, or all-purpose engagements.
To navigate the world of 'Anthem,' you'll have to fly using your exosuit.
The Ranger is the first of three Javelins and is a balanced suit built to fill all performance roles. Then there’s the Colossus, capable of tanking enemy damage and disrupting enemy positions with an array of jumping attacks. And finally, bringing up the rear, is an unnamed suit that’s focused on stealth and maneuverability.
Combat in 'Anthem' revolves around the use of abilities and weaponry, each of which can be completely customized.
Each of your Javelins can be altered with weapon modules like shoulder-mounted mortars, missile launchers, and more. There’s also complete visual customization, too, allowing you to make your suit feel unique compared to the other Javelins you’ll encounter beyond the wall — although BioWare didn’t go into much detail regarding this. Updates will also play a part, it seems. However, we’re not sure how they fit into the picture just yet.
Exploration seems to be fairly open in BioWare's latest project 'Anthem,'allowing you to dive underwater if you so desire.
When it comes to combat, Anthem has clearly been influenced by BioWare’s third-person shooter series Mass Effect, focusing on kinetic weaponry, ability usage, and what we’re guessing is an evolution of Andromeda’s excellent jetpack mechanic, allowing you to fly around the open world, dive underwater, and dash around your enemies.
As an entire package, Anthem looks like a very promising project that will compete with the likes of Destiny 2, although we won’t be seeing it release until sometime in 2018. Until then, we’ll just have the trailer below.
