What if... everyone had an Iron Man suit? What if... you could fly in Destiny? What if... James Cameron had made Avatar without the blue cat people?
Anthem's influences are many and easy to spot, but combine into an experience that remains, if not unique, at least mostly entertaining. Set on an unnamed planet where absent creators abandoned their works, you play a Freelancer, piloting customisable Javelin armour to explore the unfinished remnants left behind and defend human enclaves from the dangerous forces that amass outside walled cities.
It's a world rich in lore, blending science fiction with fantasy – a mostly-unexplained Anthem of Creation serves as a quasi-mystical energy source, while ancient relics fit the "any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic" maxim. Unfortunately, little is revealed to you through play. Much of the nuance and detail is instead delivered through a vast and ever-expanding codex of history, character notes, and geography gathered from meeting non-player characters, finding notes or objects, or discovering new areas. It's hard to care about what happens to this world when all of its depth is buried away.
The cast proves similarly bland, despite solid and often charming voice work. There's no reason to really care about anyone – the dearth of emotional connections is surprising, coming from Mass Effect and Dragon Age developer BioWare.
Like Destiny, Anthem is a 'Game as a Service' – always online, with your missions outside the hub of Fort Tarsis grouping you with other players whether you like it or not. Most quests feel fairly repetitive though – whether following the main story or taking on freeplay random missions, a lot of Anthem comes down to resource gathering or shooting down hordes of overly-similar enemies that spawn practically from nowhere. Once you've completed your objective, it's back to Tarsis, upgrade your Javelin with the loot you've found, then back out.
There's clearly something very good lurking here, but it's not quite able to break through.
The rinse-and-repeat nature robs Anthem of any real sense of permanence, not helped by the switch from third-person controls on missions to first-person in Tarsis. The disconnect is jarring, feeling like you're flipping between two different games. Combat also feels uninspired, a mix-tape of other shooters' greatest hits. Despite a range of categories from pistols to cannons, there are no real standout weapons yet, though each Javelin's special moves and ultimate attacks – charged up over the course of play – offer some nice twists. It's even possible to pull off combos with other team members' abilities, although actually communicating with allies is an afterthought.
The online nature also leads to regular problems such as connection drop offs – which, in our experience, seem to relaunch the whole game rather than merely dropping you back at the hub – or odd situations including warnings you've left the mission area or abandoned your team, even if your entire squad is still with you. Eventually, after a countdown warning you of your digital trespassing expires, you're teleported back to where the game wants you to be. It's immensely frustrating, and doesn't seem to have any clear indication of what you may be doing wrong. Hopefully, both of these issues will improve as servers stabilise.
Through all of this, Anthem has its strengths though. It's absolutely gorgeous, with some of the best looking environments in years. Similar praise can be showered on the music, with Sarah Schachner's score playable on repeat. The loot system, slave to grind though it is, provides a nice sense of progression, with increasingly powerful weapons and armour mods to experiment with.
Best of all is Anthem's freedom of movement, with the Javelins allowing flight, hovering, double-jumps and more. While there are four different base Javelins to choose from, ranging from the slow but heavily armed Colossus to the nimble Interceptor, all are gifted with flight capabilities, and it's a delight. Flight in general is incredibly hard to get right in games but, despite being somewhat limited by propulsion systems overheating if not chilled by jetting through waterfalls or diving from great heights for air cooling, it's just a joy here. Banking, soaring, and swooping around the gorgeous locations the game presents you delivers a real sense of freedom, speed, and power.
The most frustrating part of Anthem may be that there's clearly something very good lurking here, but it's not quite able to break through. If BioWare and publisher EA can keep refining the game, fix the mission tracking issues and improve player communication – or better, entirely remove the forced squad model and let solo players complete missions on their own – and bring the story into the foreground, Anthem's potential could shine. Right now though, it's an enjoyable but mediocre experience.