Anthem is set in the Mass Effect universe
Specifically, an uncharted corner of the Milky Way. There was already a story about a human colonization effort via Sleeper Starship that set out before the relay system was discovered, so why not another one? Their course took them into a portion of the galaxy where the relay system hasn't been reactivated and so are isolated from known civilization. They suffered from some catastrophe that destroyed their ship, so they're stuck on a single planet, and without access to eezo are forced to develop alternative technologies that don't make use of the mass effect.- It could be set on the garden world that the Normandy crashed on at the end of Mass Effect 3.
- To expand on that, Anthem is set in Andromeda, or another unmapped galaxy. One of the writers of the original Mass Effect trilogy (Drew Karpyshyn) is on Anthem's writing team, gameplay footage and the teaser show gameplay that is reminiscent of combat in ME, and it's set in an uncharted, alien-looking world. It would be a great opportunity to re-introduce Andromeda without bringing along the controversies surrounding ME: Andromeda.
- What if Ember is eezo? The two are used to power the Applied Phlebotinum of their respective series, and eezo is a chemical element, so it wouldn't be that much of a stretch to assume that the abnormal Green Rocks of Anthem might be a form of it.
