Players flocked to Anthem en masse after two "demo" weekends that were rocky in execution and restrained in content. Though BioWare claims the demo was from an earlier build, are technical woes the only problem facing this new sci-fi universe?
The deck is set against Anthem. Destiny is an established brand, providing looting and shooting against an inspired science fiction backdrop. The Division 2, which releases weeks after Anthem, is showing great promise as developer Massive Entertainment learned from the mistake of a flimsy launch and just put out a confident–if not slightly buggy–beta. Let’s not forget that Diablo 3 is still chugging along with new seasonal content. Oh, and what about EA’s potential surprise hit with the free-to-play Apex Legends or Battlefield V‘s upcoming battle royale mode? In an already busy season of gaming, countless options fight in the tug-of-war for players’ attention.
For two weekends, the community finally got a taste of BioWare’s first new franchise in a decade. The results were polarizing. In the last weekend of January, those who pre-ordered Anthem were able to download an exclusive “VIP” demo containing a handful of story missions, a small chunk of an open-world map of unknown size, and a dungeon-like Stronghold. Immediately as the VIP demo went live, early adopters were met with server issues and infinite loading screens that continued through most of the demo period. The following week, an open demo invited everyone into the madness with the same content and similar technical issues. Though it was a sizeable thorn in the side of Anthem‘s opening salvo, the struggles may not be over as the game seeks relevance among the crowd.
An Early Demonstration
There once was a time when the term “beta” didn’t apply to most games. There might have been a chance PC players could get their hands on alpha or beta code of game long before release but it wasn’t commonplace. Instead, the demo disc was one of the few methods of getting an early taste of a game before release. The blind and uninformed purchases of the 8- and 16-bit eras were less rampant as gaming magazines and the internet started building momentum. But the real treat was bringing home a magazine that had a demo disc packed with small snippets of a multiple games to try out. These game “demonstrations” were bits of a full game meant to give players a taste of what’s to come and whet the appetite. There may be a few bugs here and there as code was still being finalized but what you played was mostly what you got.
Beta tests and pre-order betas and private betas are so ingrained in our gaming culture now they’ve nearly replaced what most people even expect out of a pre-release “demonstration.” As an incentive to pre-order, players are now offered exclusive alphas and betas for always-online games. Arguments stem from the idea that the terminology is important because a game is still being worked on–despite being only weeks away from release in many cases–and a “beta” is a “demonstration” of the final game, just with a mild bug infestation.
For Anthem, this pre-release period and the phrasing around it led to some wildly different expectations for players. Personally, I’m not sure who decided upon the specifics but for me, a demo is not this cobbled together. Word got out that the build used for both demos was an old one from months ago and that problems and complaints many would have were already quashed for release. That was a small relief because I can’t imagine a studio putting out a co-op shooter with a persistent online world packed with server problems, disappearing enemies, disconnects, framerate issues, and frequent loading screens.
Anthem‘s VIP demo was a mess for me and my friends. After I got off work that Friday, I managed to momentarily hop in before a disconnect. Several couldn’t play until the following day because of server issues and all of us had any kind of progress hampered by infinite loading. One of us couldn’t unlock a new Javelin, which was such a rampant problem that BioWare unlocked all four for every player by Sunday night. By that time, I had gently pushed Anthem to the side for next week when things would hopefully get better.
Even after facing fewer problems for the open demo, it was hard not to question why this was called a demo in the first place. As I write this article I find myself tripping up and saying “open beta” because the phrase has become so baked into these experiences. I also thought about the varying groups of people playing both weekends. The “VIP” demographic was full of people who had already pre-ordered the game and given some of their money to finally get their hands on Anthem. Scanning through forums after that weekend, I saw a lot of deflated players hoping things would turn around or claiming their pre-order was cancelled. What about those who don’t frequent gaming websites and instead see the handful of hype-building trailers or simply buy big games sight unseen? That group wouldn’t have known this was an early build and not indicative of a final product. They may see the term “demo” and assume this is the game they will get at launch, minus some of the most horrendous of problems.
Anthem shouldn’t be the straw man for overcoming a beta versus demo argument. However, it should serve as a lesson on how to market a product and release early builds for the public. Regardless of what was used to describe these early weekends of Anthem, it gave off the impression of a product that is being rushed to market. Most players don’t get to attend the events where journalists and “influencers” play builds of games that are closer to release or have developers on hand to hotfix problems. It’s fair to be speculative that a team is capable of fixing major problems with only a few weeks or months left before it’s out in the wild. Keep in mind, Anthem went gold days before the VIP demo went live.
Back in November, BioWare members began a series of livestreams showing off different parts of Anthem. They were informative and inticing, providing a good amount of substance for a game that had been pretty quiet on specifics. It wasn’t until a livestream the week before the VIP demo that attention was called to the left side of the video where a HUD indicator showed the health of teammates. Apparently that indicator would not exist during the demo period but was ready for launch. “Why?” I wondered. Hadn’t Dragon Age: Inquisition, a BioWare game released in 2014, included that feature?
It seems like such a minor detail to focus on but for a person uneducated in the minutiae of game development, I wonder how long it took for such a basic thing to be fully implemented across different builds. The infinite loading bug present in the demos was known by BioWare and constantly being worked on. How good will the team be at identifying issues and eliminating them at a rapid pace? Is the main game really going to have that many loading screens between areas? The technical complexity of a persistent online open world is boundless; but at the end of the day, a lot of players don’t care because they just want the game to work.
A Familiar Feeling
Technical issues can hinder a game like Anthem in the short term but are nothing compared to foundational problems that eat away at similar titles. Those titans of industry I alluded to as threats to Anthem‘s debut? Their demise was written in stone multiple times. Destiny has suffered content droughts more times than I would like to admit but its dedicated base still grinds the day away. The Division released with a paltry endgame offering that was only truly ironed out after a year’s worth of updates that oscillated in quality. Diablo 3‘s auction house, launch woes, and horrible loot drops gave no indication that it would be a game capable of thriving.
Unlike Anthem and BioWare, those games and developers had the growing pains of time and community feedback to mold them into the products they are today. BioWare has little to no excuse to launch a game like Anthem without a robust endgame, an engaging story, and near-infinite replayability. By looking at its genre predecessors, the hallmarks of success are all but laid out to copy.
BioWare’s penchant for storytelling can be found in Mass Effect, Dragon Age, and its Star Wars games. Leading up to release, I’m cautiously optimistic about Anthem‘s story of long-gone Shapers who began to mold a world and left without a trace. Who were these omnipotent beings and will we find out more about them? Will it include human drama impacted by choice? I feel that anyone looking for a sweeping tale in the tradition of the studio’s previous games may be left disappointed but that’s only because BioWare is keeping so much under wraps. The small story arc about the “divided” arcanist Matthias hinted at intriguing bits of lore but didn’t wow me. Perhaps that’s because the arc took place deeper into the story or perhaps it’s because I’ve seen the bombastic opening chapters of Anthem‘s story (thanks internet leaks) that actually placed stakes in what our Freelancers are working towards. Will there actually be a reason to slowly trod through Fort Tarsis and talk to people after each mission? Personally, it would be better to show too much than too little, that way more players can be hooked.
One of my other major qualms with Anthem that was only exacerbated by the demo was depth of content. The bulk of Anthem‘s gameplay looks to take place in this jungle-like area which contains pockets of ruins and caves and little else. Where are the deserts and watery areas that aren’t just caverns? After a few hundred hours The Division‘s snowy New York City blocks of ruined streets and skyscrapers eventually lost their appeal. A science fiction flourish won’t keep the greens and blues and grays of Anthem from becoming stale. Brisk seconds of trailers have shown volcanic-like ruins but again, are environments like that just one-off Strongholds or story missions? At least in Destiny when I got tired of running the same loop on Earth I could fly off to the red dunes of Mars for a change of scenery to do the same loop.
The demo could have assuaged many of these fears if it had been a bit bolder. After all, why hide good content if you have it? There has been such a cloud of vagueness around so much of Anthem and BioWare is constantly teasing content but rarely talks about it in a satisfying manner. The gameplay loop in the beta did not feel indicative of anything but the first mildly tedious hours of any game of this type. Gunplay was passable but almost feels like an afterthought compared to the incredible powers of each Javelin. It’s hard to understand why players could initially only select two Javelins out of four. I spend most of my time as the Interceptor and felt like the only point to the class was to hop in with my melee abilities and hop out. But those abilities did little damage and barely complimented the priming and detonating features of Anthem‘s combat.
Laughably, there are dozens of videos on YouTube about the best builds for the demo. When the game launches, those builds will likely be effective for an hour at best. What I’ve really been wanting to see from Anthem is how the endgame functions, especially with the perks on Legendary and Masterwork loot. Unfortunately, only glimpses of that aspect of the endgame can been seen from those who played preview builds and were thrust into endgame loadouts with little time to grasp them. Even on a stream talking about high-end gear, BioWare admitted it wasn’t actually functioning properly when they went to try it out in the open world.
Ubisoft should be commended for The Division 2 beta… which ironically felt more like a demo when compared to what Anthem offered. I understand that Anthem doesn’t have PvP but for The Division 2 beta, players were able to hop into an endgame mission and try out a small bit of what harder content would look like. It would have been wise for BioWare to give players the option to select one of four Javelins with a couple loadouts and toss them into a Stronghold on Hard or Grandmaster 1 difficulty. If it wasn’t enough to pique a skeptic’s interest, maybe that’s fair and those people can give Anthem a pass or more time.
Because “a small taste” seemed to be the theme of Anthem‘s demo period, a small part of the open demo’s final day was subject to a world event. A ring of fire appeared in the skybox of the freeplay area that couldn’t be interacted with and players would see that a massive Ash Titan had spawned. At least, that’s how it was for players who were lucky enough to see it on their first try or those who kept going in and out of free play. BioWare has implied that this is just “a taste of what’s to come.” It looks to be a Cataclysm which may or may not be a Shaper Storm that was hinted at in the E3 2017 reveal of Anthem. This was another opportunity BioWare could have used to hook players but instead insisted that more would eventually come. Well… okay.
The Promise of More
I’m well aware that I sound very down on Anthem and I mostly blame this demo. After suffering through technical issues and being underwhelmed by the content offered, it was hard not to be. But that doesn’t mean my excitement for the game has been negated. I’m leery of BioWare making the same mistakes as studios before it but hopeful that the core of Anthem will be strong enough to sustain rough weather.
When I look at Anthem, I see more Diablo 3 in it more than something like Destiny. Diablo 3 has a mildly interesting story and few complained. Unless BioWare has completely forgotten how to design a complex narrative, I can see its love of characters and codices supplementing a new franchise. Flying around in a Javelin is a blast and the effects and explosions of using powers is great. What I’m hoping for is that, like Diablo 3, Anthem is a deluge of loot that constantly fuels stronger characters meant to butt heads with increasingly difficult content. When was the last time anyone started a Diablo 3 character on normal? Players want a challenge but they also want their investment rewarded. Grandmaster difficulties have the potential to be fun but they can’t be the end. If more difficulties are added with finer-tuned gear sets and buffed enemies, Anthem can become an awesome addiction. If Cataclysms are anything like raids, then bravo.
Recently, BioWare released a roadmap for Anthem providing hints at the content that will be added in the period after release. When I see bullet points like “a new Stronghold” or “expanded progression system,” I’m of two minds. The optimist in me is glad that a drip of content will be tantalizing enough for Anthem to always be in my mind. However, I also wonder why the progression system isn’t final and is instead being expanded soon after launch and who decided that three Strongholds was a satisfactory number for this kind of game. BioWare’s claims that the world of Anthem is constantly changing and events like Cataclysms will change the game. That’s nice and all but again, players have been burned by language like this before. I will never forget the Queen’s Wrath event that launched for two weeks shortly after Destiny 1‘s release. Most players had cleared every Strike dozens of times and exhausted all content and were clamoring for something more. Bungie’s roadmap made it seem like things would be okay and that Queen’s Wrath would put new stuff in the game. Ultimately, though, it was just an excuse to kill the same things in a slightly different way for slightly different loot. Well, except for that one farming exploit that was quickly taken out.
As this console generation begins to die down, games like Anthem are no doubt hoping to stay relevant when a new batch of stronger machines release. Before then, there’s plenty of opportunity for failure and success for this addicting genre. Cautious optimism is never a bad thing. It prevents you from getting too hopeful and too beleaguered with disappointment. I’ll forever judge Anthem‘s rocky debut as a preventable mess that put a bad taste in my mouth. But even as I often stared at a loading screen I could see little rays of light poking through. A fantastic game could be tucked underneath all the cloak and dagger marketing. And very soon, we will find out.
Anthem releases February 22 for PS4, Xbox One, and PC (don’t even get me started on that February 15 early release nonsense).
