BioWare has recently shared its first inside look at what players can expect to see when the 2.0 update comes toAnthem, but whileBioWare’s upcoming 2.0 editionwill be taking new approaches to major game mechanics, the developer shouldn’t lose sight of the initial positives that drew players to the game in the first place.
If there really was nothing worth saving inAnthem, then BioWare would have simply dropped the title entirely and wouldn’t be putting the extra effort into trying to revive the rapidly dying game. In truth, it’s the basics that sold players on piloting the Javelins in the first place, with bugs and a desperate need for quality of life fixes on launch that quickly bled out the player community in the months after release.
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Of course, there was certainly more wrong with the game than a simple glitch or two; however, asMass Effect Andromeda’s Steam successhas proven, BioWare does have the potential to redeem poor title launches. This could mean that theAnthem 2.0update doesn’t even need to go quite as far as some players might expect, given that a relatively glitch free release of the revamp might be enough to bring early fans back to be consistent players. Most importantly, fiddling with the basic foundation that the game is built on will need to be delicately tended to by reinforcing the positives instead of trying to dig too deep into the core mechanics.
The Basics of Javelin Control
Any breakdown ofAnthem’s mechanics and gameplay loop is unfortunately always going to rely on comparisons toDestiny’s looter shooter success, due to overlap of how the two games work at their core. However, in one way that the two games are similar is that the basics of gameplay remains each title’s highest quality, keeping players returning even after long periods of content drought. This hasn’t quite been the issue forDestiny 2since it launched, andAnthem’s drought is somewhat intentional as BioWare moves towards the revamp, but Bungie has dropped the ball in the past and still managed to hold onto its players.
Gunplay is the cornerstone of any shooter, where if the weapons don’t feel satisfying to fire, the enemies don’t feel satisfying to kill, or the weapon variety doesn’t give satisfying customization, then a game is doomed to fail from the outset.Anthem’s current equipment and loothas at least two of these factors accounted for, with variety being one of the game’s biggest issues that BioWare needs to address. The game itself is fun to play on its own thanks to the gunplay and Javelin abilities like ground-slamming, and especially the flight mechanics, with the reward system and lack of varying content that drops players off as the game world offers little excitement.
Flight Mechanics
One major mechanic inAnthemthat sold most players on the game in the first place would be the Javelin flight controls that allow players to roam freely around the world while soaring through the air. Early gameplay footage showed off some of the game’s beautiful locations and the living breathing world that players couldn’t wait to dive into when they first booted up the game. Even thoughAnthem’s Javelins can be improved, they are still easily the best aspect of the game for both combat and exploration of the unfortunately empty world.
Tweaks here and there to the flight might be useful, but it may be too easy for BioWare accidentally ruin this core aspect of the game. Things like additional fast travel locations, while much more convenient to use, could wind up chopping the world into multiple separate pieces, instead of allowing Javelin flight to create the feeling of a sprawling, world. That being said, filling that world with unique, rewarding experiences is the main step towardsrevivingAnthemwith the revamp, as the lack of variety still remains one of the game’s most glaring weaknesses.
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A kneejerk response toreworking the weapons inAnthemmight be to either start digging in and tweaking every single weapon’s base stats, or throwing everything that players know now out and starting over. Some screw tightening here and their might be a good idea to bring time-to-kill down to a more satisfying level, especially for new and returning players jumping into early combat encounters. However, as mentioned above, the foundation ofAnthem’s gameplay is solid. The major issue with the game comes down more to a lack of variety, making the addition of new weapons a better path forward than messing with what is already present.
Leaning into thescience-fiction setting ofAnthemcould give BioWare the same freedom that Bungie had when it came to developing variant weapons, like charging snipers and shotguns, or sticky-grenade launchers. It really is a situation where the only limit is imagination, and the budget required to develop a suite of new weapons to give proper variety within each new weapon class. This continues to harken back on the fact that the basics of the game are fine, but a lack of variety is likely even more responsible for the hemorrhaging of early players than the lack of additional content updates ever could be.
The Main Quest
From whatBioWare has shown ofAnthem 2.0, it doesn’t look like there is any intention to address any of the issues present in the main storyline of the game, and it really shouldn’t. Looking again toDestinyfor a comparison, the story that launched with the game was almost universally dismissed as being too short, boring, and repetitive, especially when compared to Bungie’s previous games. This repeated almost verbatim for the original launch ofAnthem, with some characters standing out, but very few reaching anywhere near the heights of any of theMass Effect,Dragon Age, orKnights of the Old Republiccharacter BioWare is known for.
All of that being said, BioWare shouldn’t do anything toAnthem’s main story, not even at the base level like rerecording dialogue performances or removing lines like the “Get glitched” quip. Making these kinds of changes would be more trouble than they’re worth, and it’s often better to lean into things that players turn into jokes than trying to paper over them, since everything lives forever online and the cracks still show. Instead, theAnthem 2.0revampshould be followed quickly or arrive alongside a new campaign that continues the story of the original, to better establish characters and build a better lore foundation moving forward.
Anthemis available now for PC, PS4, and Xbox One.
