Anthem Reviews
Beautiful and mechanically robust throughout, but weighed down by repetitive missions, a flabby structure, and a lot of the people you meet in Fort Tarsis. Even the strongest beats become tiresome if repeated or drowned in white noise, and that's Anthem in a nutshell.Richard Scott-Jones
Anthem may look like a slick blend of action and exploration all wrapped up in some shiny armour, but beneath its surface lies a game that is riddled with bugs, shallow world-building and a paint by numbers approach to its design.
If BioWare can salvage the great gameplay ideas the game is built on and streamline some of the obtuse checklists, maybe Anthem will become the engrossing, living world I wanted it to be. But maybe I’m searching for something that was never there.
Anthem is a game with unmet potential at every turn. The gameplay is fantastic and recreates the '30 seconds of fun' that has made its competitor Destiny such a success. But in its current state of bugs, server issues and poor design decisions, it is planted firmly in the 'play it in six months' category.
For all its flaws, it has to be said that Anthem is a lot of fun. Some 60 hours in, between both PC and PS4 where I’m onto the endgame in both, I still enjoy the moment to moment gameplay.
Bungie fixed Destiny. Massive fixed The Division. Bioware have all the pieces of the puzzle, but right now Anthem isn’t living up to its potential. It’s bad, but not so bad it can’t be fixed.
We hoped beyond hope that Anthem would show the world just how sci-fi online action role-playing games were done. What we got, however, was far from that and without some serious improvement, Anthem could take Mass Effect: Andromeda's crown as BioWare's worst ever release.
It’s a shame then that everything surrounding this core feels so disjointed. A story that lacks momentum outside of a few moments, mission design that reveals all its nuance in a matter of minutes, and a cumbersome progression system interrupted by walls
Anthem is a game that tries to be an answer to Destiny’s popularity and even seeks to answer some of the issues people have with that game. At the same time, it ends up feeling derivative, and any fatigue you have with Destiny is likely to carry over
Anthem is an MMO-lite looter-shooter with potential sadly unrealized. Most of its design decisions feel woefully underdeveloped, despite how it excels in its frankly addicting gameplay. The interjection of a freemium forced economy as well as the simultaneous extension of and lack of any traditional end-game or development beyond the main story screams of publisher intervention. Anthem's systems are absolutely wonderful, but they feel crippled by its other design decisions.
Anthem offers a solid multiplayer PvE action-shooter experience and exo suit power fantasy dampened by fundamental design problems and loot system inconsistencies.
Bugs, crashes, bad optimization, repetitive objectives, horrible load times and lots more, unfortunately, overshadow the game's great flight and combat system.
Anthem is an excellent Iron Man simulator bogged down with poor mission design set in a fascinating world with a lack-luster story. Coupled with a critical lack of end-game content, this is by far the weakest offering from BioWare. Enjoyment of this game will fully rest on how much you enjoy the combat.
Anthem has a great potential. But right now, it has a few problems.
Review in Turkish | Read full review
At this point in time, Anthem feels like a title that needs more work. I want to like it, but damn does it make it hard. Like the games that came before it in this genre, I’ve no doubt that Anthem will get better and bulkier with updates over time, but if Bioware takes too long in getting there, I fear most of the player base will have moved on.
Perhaps it will get better, but whether the audience is still there when it does is questionable. Cool flying mechanics can only keep the interest of the masses for so long.
Anthem struggles to deliver an engaging and ongoing experience to return and grind every day. Even if you manage to look above his flaws, like underwhelming loot design, mission structure and rigid combat, there is little joy to be found in this game.
Review in Spanish | Read full review
Anthem manages to offer up moments of fun, with occasionally chaotic action, Javelin gameplay variety and freeform traversal. But an overly convoluted and forgettable story, underwhelming RPG elements and outdated design choices make for a rough introduction to this brave new world.
Anthem is a disappointment, there are a core design issues and technical issues that prevented the game from becoming a great game and made it just another looting game.
Review in Arabic | Read full review
