Features Anthem Needs Straight Away
New Javelins
Like with any class-based multiplayer game, the classes you can play as in Anthem are everything to the experience. Each of the four Javelins are incredibly different, whether it’s the artillery-like Colossus or the hit-and-run melee Interceptor.
It’s great fun to try out each of the four different classes, but for Anthem to truly have long legs BioWare will need to introduce even more new Javelins to mix up the formula. After you’ve played Anthem for a good 20-30 hours you’ll no doubt have tried out each Javelin, and gotten a feel for which one fits your play style best.
The best way to really shake up the dynamic of Anthem would be to introduce a brand new Javelin, maybe alongside a full-fledged expansion. This is something the Destiny series has done well up to this point, by periodically introducing new classes and subclasses across the different expansions, including the introduction of Destiny 2.
Obviously, introducing a new class is a major shake-up for the general balance of the game, but it’s the easiest way for BioWare to get people reinvested in Anthem as it grows older.
Features Anthem Needs Straight Away
More Varied Enemies and Objectives
Enemy diversity is a big deal for any game, whether it’s single player or multiplayer. At the moment, this is definitely one of the problems that plagues Anthem as you’ll be fighting the same enemy types time and time again.
Anthem’s core combat is phenomenal, but even the best combat can start to wear thin when you go up against the same enemy types with the same tactics. Scars and outlaws make up the bulk of these enemies, and they’re the grunts you’ll be going up against in almost every mission in the game.
Enemies like the Dominion and Elementals help shake things up a little bit, but the hard truth is that you’ll quickly get familiar with plowing through hordes in the same kinds of missions. To make matters even worse, Anthem also has a lack of diversity in its objectives and missions structure.
Go to a point, kill enemies, repeat. Go to a point, collect a resource, repeat. The objective structure serves its purpose, but Anthem could easily benefit from the introduction of wildly different mission structure. Put more puzzle-solving elements into the game, or force teams to split up and hold off enemies in different areas.
Hopefully, BioWare really makes a point of providing great post-launch support for Anthem. The game’s post-launch plan is, sadly, very ambiguous at this point. However, if the game can introduce world-shaking events that introduce entirely new factions or enemy armies, that could go a long way to fixing its variation problems.
Features Anthem Needs Straight Away
Less Grinding and More Robust Endgame
Outside of general diversity, there’s a major issue that crops up in Anthem later on, grinding. Specifically, with the Tomb of the Legionnaires, where players essentially hit a complete wall to their story progress.
Partway through Anthem’s story you’ll need to complete four different trials, with each trial requiring you to complete a host of menial challenges, like getting multikills or repairing ally Javelins. Unfortunately, player will need to jump into Freeplay to complete these, and it can bring any interest you might have in the story to a sudden halt.
Grinding is a necessary part of many games that should be there for any players that enjoy that kind of experience, and want to reap the rewards of doing so. However, a game like Anthem that’s hoping to attract players of all kinds can have a tough time introducing intense grinding into the main story.
Completing all of the requisite challenges might be more than enough to turn off players who aren’t fully invested in Anthem, and it’s something that should quickly be addressed.
At the same time, Anthem doesn’t have much to keep players occupied after finishing the story either. There are still high-level Strongholds and contracts, as well as free roam; however, the game’s diversity problems also play into this.
BioWare has already detailed Cataclysms, huge post-game events being added in later, and hopefully this can help provide more intense challenges in the post-game for players. As more people finish Anthem, BioWare will need to introduce more and more new content for them to dive into in the post-game.
Features Anthem Needs Straight Away
Dramatically Different and Exciting Abilities
Like we said earlier, each of Anthem’s Javelins are wildly different. However, the abilities within each Javelin class don’t always reflect the same level of diversity. For example, almost all of the Colossus’ abilities focus on artillery support and huge area-of-effect attacks, while the Storm’s abilities focus on elemental damage and combos.
The same can be said for weapons, that basically boil down to classes like shotguns, machine guns, pistols, etc. But all the weapons in any given class all function virtually the same. It’d be great to see BioWare introduce highly unique abilities and weapons into the game. Give us shotguns that perform differently in terms of spread, damage output, whatever else.
This is even more important for abilities, as you could virtually allow players to create new classes with the right abilities. This is something the Diablo franchise has always done well, allowing classes to function outside of their usual use.
You could give the Interceptor some heavy explosion/AoE attacks that really let them play with a risk-reward kind of combat system.
On the other hand, you could give the Ranger more abilities that let it play a support role, maybe even go so far as to let you replace Assault Launchers with support ones. Considering Anthem doesn’t currently have a strictly support class, it’d be great to see that kind of variation come to the game.
Either way, BioWare will need to introduce new dynamics and abilities to each of its Javelins if they want to keep players sticking around.
Features Anthem Needs Straight Away
PvP Multiplayer
Anthem is different from most shared-world shooters as it’s entirely co-op focused, but that’s not a problem. Anthem’s world is built around story and lore, and its theme of stronger together certainly fits with co-op. However, with such an engaging combat system, it’s fascinating to think of what BioWare could do by introducing multiplayer.
Of course, Anthem multiplayer wouldn’t need to interfere with the main game in any way, and could easily be something like Destiny’s Crucible. Things might have to be fine-tuned a bit, but imagine being able to blast around in your Javelin while taking on other players.
With how unique each Javelin class is you could really create some bombastic matches, both in free-for-all and team matches. Obviously, multiplayer would never take the main focus away from Anthem’s single-player, but it’d be a good way to completely reinvigorate interest in the game at the end of year one.
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