While many would have assumed the game was going to be quietly cancelled, BioWare intends to give Anthem a grand return in the far future. EA seems to be giving it a shot as well, despite the highly publicized commercial failure of its ambitious looter-shooter game. There’s been intermittent blog posts from a small team dedicating their efforts to reviving the game, showing that Anthem is certainly not done yet. Promises have been made, and it’s been a long time since any official news on “Anthem 2.0” has come out.
A recent blog post at the end of October detailed quite a few systemic changes possibly coming to Anthem‘s revival in the future. Christian Dailey, author of the blog post and studio director for BioWare Austin, posted more conceptual details that he specifically stated are subject to change. A lot of the changes proposed by Dailey and the BioWare development team do seem like vast improvements over the previous Anthem systems, but it’s hard to really tell if this incremental approach will be enough to turn the game back around.
Previous blog posts have detailed changes on the loot systems in Anthem, and how drop rates and rarities will be determined in Anthem 2.0, but this recent blog post was all about Javelin builds and character progression. Abilities and Javelin builds are compiled in a fundamentally different way now, specifically with abilities becoming inherent to skill tree unlocks instead of adding to the loot drops. Abilities can also be upgraded through mods acquired in the game world, and inscriptions are less prominent but can still improve build synergy.
Each Javelin now has a skill tree inherent to that specific armor, which houses the different active abilities, passive abilities, and stat boosts unlockable through experience progression. For every Javelin suit specialization, there’s a unique skill tree with different abilities inherent to that particular playstyle. These specializations and Javelins can be augmented by special artifacts as well, which have abilities/boosts inherent to those items, adding even more customization for builds. Character building sounds very reminiscent of Destiny 2‘s character current setup for progression, and that’s certainly not a bad thing.
However, Anthem most certainly is not in as much of a stable place as Destiny 2 is, which has mapped out the next three years of content coming to the game already. Granted that’s a pretty unusual action, but for Anthem, the game is effectively shut down until Anthem 2.0 is ready for public release. However, for all of the changes and promises BioWare has given on Anthem so far, it’s a bit of a mixed bag. Bringing systemic changes to loot and character progression to a game that’s centered on that gameplay loop makes sense, but that can’t be all. Quests and activities still need to be overhauled and revamped, and that’s before even considering any kind of narrative overhaul.
Sure, adjustments to the overarching story of Anthem don’t necessarily need to be made, but mission design at its core should be a primary concern. So far, BioWare’s had nothing to say about any kind of changes to the activities that drive the loot and character progression in Anthem 2.0. That aspect is more than likely still under conceptual development, but it’s a pretty big deal for a looter game to have repetitive tasks that aren’t boring. All of the changes detailed in this most recent BioWare development update will only really move the needle for hardcore Anthem fans. Anyone who’s cautiously curious about what Anthem 2.0 becomes isn’t going to be hooked by this news.
This is without even getting into the topic of whether Anthem gets revived as a next-gen game, because it’s clear the development for Anthem 2.0 is still very early on. Granted, the BioWare team working on revamping Anthem is comparatively quite small. It’s unclear whether or not the game’s revamp is planned for current-gen and next-gen, or if the game just gets a full-on re-release like with Final Fantasy 14.
Frankly, it’s tough to say which is the right call for Anthem at this point, since it’s been more than a year and a half since the game’s original release. Anthem does have plenty of redeemable qualities and deserves a retry, but it’s hard to say if its current development plan is enough.
Anthem is available now for PC, PS4, and Xbox One.
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