Anthem (Bioware's new property)

https://www.polygon.com/e3/2017/6/10/15776190/anthem-bioware-e3-2017 "A full gameplay reveal will come later this week, during Microsoft’s E3 2017 briefing. That will air live on Sunday, June 11 at 2 p.m. PT.

It appears to be set in a futuristic world. It’s a brand new property for Bio Ware. Known previously by the codename “Dylan,” EA previously announced that Anthem will be an action-adventure title that will work as a “live service,” similar to how games like Destiny are run."

EDIT: Gameplay Reveal

edited 11th Jun '17 4:07:15 PM by GodEmperor

Swear to me you insignificant maggots!

I was expecting some bizarre, Ayn Rand-inspired story-driven dystopia game.

This looks kind of... generic... granted, its only a teaser.

edited 10th Jun '17 4:43:04 PM by Soble

I'M MR. MEESEEKS, LOOK AT ME!

Fuck the owl.

Mileena Madness

I think Aftermath is a pretty cool guy. Eh kills aleins and doesnt afraid of anything.

Really hoping that this isn't an MMO. EA and Bioware have already demonstrated with SWTOR that they are kind of mediocre with MMOs.

This will probably be MMO, something akin to Destiny than WOW. Yup, one more reason to not care about Bioware at this point.

edited 10th Jun '17 5:16:40 PM by kaalban

Everything that lives is designed to end.

"The story doesn't end here. It's just the beginning." Well, duh. This is the very first thing we've seen.

Hence why I always HATED that tag line. Ugh. Especially if its for the first installment of something.

Got to say...

Kind of disappointed. I was hoping for something more... genre breaking or at least completely different than ME or DA.

This just seems... eh. I'm not particularly impressed. I was more interested for Shadow Realms when that was a thing than I am by that trailer. This trailer told me nothing of what I go to Bioware for: a good story. And, on top of that, Bioware does two things really well; characters and playing with tropes.

I was hoping for something else. Like, Bioware doing something more western or maybe they could do some kind of Urban Fantasy series and play with those respective tropes. A vaguely defined si-fi seems... eh. I don't even know its an RPG based off the trailer.

I was hoping for an Urban Fantasy series as well, to be honest. It's a genre that's pretty different from Bioware's usual fare, and I'd really like to see what they could do with that.

I'll confess I have a few ideas that form a pretty particular picture in my mind that I think would make for an interesting Bioware game in this regard, although I picture the cast as being somewhat younger than the norm for them (Persona's something of an inspiration here).

Anyway, this isn't quite what I was looking for, but considering how little we know about it so far, I'm willing to give it a chance. I'll wait until the Microsoft conference to form a concrete opinion, and I'll still keep my ear to the ground for new info about this. Who knows, it might be fun.

Oh God! Natural light!

Oh! Bioware could do a Horror themed RPG.

Being a survivor in terrifying situations and mixing between stealth, combat, and conversations to make your way through the story.

Ohhhhhhhhh. Ugh. I see so much potential for them to play with their strengths since, well, what genre gets more topey with their characters than horror stories?

It's certainly considerably outside their comfort zone - Bioware tends to prefer grand adventures, which doesn't necessarily go well with horror. I'll be honest, I'm not entirely sure it could work. What sort of game are you picturing here?

Oh God! Natural light!

Well, I'd argue that's kind of the point. Bioware is in a very comfortable place with Dragon Age and Mass Effect and the latest installment in Mass Effect has been accused of being too similar to that of Inquisition.

Well, if 'too similar' is a problem, why not reach out of the comfort zone and do something that's in a different tone and genre than they're used to? Try out some new gameplay styles, like stealth and survival horror? A smaller scale and tone of story with more personal narratives/stakes would be a change of pace too?

For example, ok, let's say we have a Friday the 13th situation (and I'll use the recent game as a base reference point). We could completely avert the issues people have lobbied at Inquisition and Andromeda about 'Why is my character in charge?' and very easily and belivably set our protagonist at the forefront by simply them being the one to come up with some ideas on what to do about surviving under pressure. In a smaller personal situation, it makes sense for one person to gravitate to making some decisions that others might go along with.

In the same vein, a horror setting has a lot of really basic and upfront tropes to play with: The slut, the virgin, the nerd, the jock, etc. You have your work cut out for you in taking a very old and tired trope, combining them with a few more, and making it refreshed with a new lease on life. Maybe the masculine football jock IS the slut? Or, if we're going for Cosmic horror stories (like Cuthlu) then we have more tropes to play with. Maybe the 'Sleeping Great Old One' that no one wants to wake up isn't the Big bad, but is instead the Big Good and the horrible events happening in the game are to keep them sleeping?

If anything, Horror has some of the strictest uses of tropes of any genre. Fantasy is usually more of a setting at times that has to be crossed with a second genre (adventure, romance, etc). I'd say Westerns are a similarly strict on trope genre, but probably because that's also a genre that didn't develop and evolve much. Being that the genre is so strict on tropes, there's a lot to play with.

I'd say probably their big major issue is that horror doesn't really lend itself to 80-120 hour RPG epics like Bioware usually turns out. Horror movies like slashers tend to take place within a handful of hours and, on top of that, modern everyday stuff (like cell phones, cars, the internet) tend to stop horror stories in their tracks. And, even when horror games have tried to push out to a longer running time, it ends up feeling like padding. Horror works in quick intense panic and you can't keep that high intensity panic going for 80 hours.

They could introduce something akin to Insanity mechanic. The more you stress over something (existential threats, inner threats, repetition of some things), the more your Insanity level is increased and it creates... interesting perspectives at best and cause catastrophes at worst.

edited 11th Jun '17 1:37:17 AM by kaalban

Everything that lives is designed to end.

That was my issue - the sheer scope and length of your typical Bioware RPG isn't really compatible with a horror game. They could always break away from that, sure, but truth be told, I'm not sure how much they could do that before it just stops being a Bioware game.

Oh God! Natural light!

Hopes and fears, folks. Hopes and fears.

For me, it's always exciting to see new IP, especially if it's from a dev house whose work I have previously liked. New IP represents a chance to start fresh, to really put your best foot forward free from the conceptual and developmental constraints of working within an established property.

It also carries it's fair share of risk, however. Given how Bioware bungled Mass Effect: Andromeda, people are going to be wondering how well this new entry is going to fare. In particular, the comparisons to Destiny fill me with a sense of foreboding. Destiny's hype was truly legendary, eclipsing even that of No Man's Sky. And yet, when it released, the consensus was that it was mostly mediocre. To this day, I'm of the opinion that the single best thing about Destiny is it's art design, the rest is fairly run-of-the-mill shooting with a community element thrown in.

I still remember how good Bioware's games can be, and I fervently hope what they have to show us at their upcoming event proves that Anthem is worth being excited about.

yey

Right, but I suppose that depends on how we're defining 'Bioware Game' here. I'd say the quintessential Bioware game that is a full RPG of all the character and dialogue choices, lots of tropes with deconstructions, subversions, etc, and strong characters that you keep coming back for more of.

I'd take the whole '80-120 hour' issue as a challenge, not a fault. I'd argue they'd have to make the horror moments really intense, so that we really want to get back to the tense but less so moments with characters. Thus the pacing would feel a bit better. They could also look at what other games have done and learn from their mistakes or successes; Alan Wake has a bit of a pacing problem where the plot feels a little to giddy to throw you back into a dark woods at night every episode where you're not interacting with characters much. At the same time, their use of combat is probably some of the best I've seen in a horror game where the enemies feel terrifying, but still perfectly defeatable.

It looks so... generic, and unimaginative. I don't know, it's like something from some kind of Generic Videogme Blockbuster Generator.

It'll probably like Destiny, from the looks of it. And yeah, exosuits are overdone by this point.

Everything that lives is designed to end.

And it's an MMO. Fuck.

Really pretty though. It looks like Bioware has finally figured out how to make Frostbite work.

Hmm...definitely not what I was looking for.

Still, I'll keep an eye on it - maybe there's more to it than what we've seen so far.

Oh God! Natural light!

Gameplay for Anthem just dropped.

edited 11th Jun '17 4:29:47 PM by InkDagger

I already have one question:

Why is sprinting so slow? It's way slower than it should be.

edited 11th Jun '17 4:34:26 PM by kaalban

Everything that lives is designed to end.

Ok so it looks good, sure it looks kinda generic & Destiny-ish but hey at least it seems its gonna be one humongous exploreable world instead of multiple small locations. The flying & going underwater is pretty kickass & exo-suits are always cool.

This doesn't seem like an MMO but just multiplayer heavy but still.... did they say its gonna be a role-player? I think that be the deal-breaker for me, I'd like for this to be rather story & role-laying heavy.

Yeah they should fix that. It doesn't feel as powerful as it should be. They should be sprinting with as much force & power as like a rhino or an elephant.

edited 11th Jun '17 4:37:15 PM by slimcoder

"I am Alpharius. This is a lie."

Yeah. It doesn't seem MMO, if just heavily multiplayer like Borderlands is.

But it just feels... generic. Super suits, post-apocalypse world, si-fi elements here, and the landscape of Pandora with more castle-esque ruins. It doesn't feel... It feels like a lot of shooters over the last few years.

And it took me a bit to realize that 'Paul' was another player and not a companion figure.

The lack of anything RPG related and the preview being completely, well, third person shooter, also really turned me off.

I was down for Bioware stretching their muscles and getting out of their comfort zone, but nothing I've seen in the demo plays to their strengths.

Bioware's Destiny, felt like. It was so Bungie...