Apparently Anthem surprised a lot of folks at E3 2018. It wasn't surprising that it was being shown. It wasn't surprising that it wants to eat Destiny's lunch. But it is surprising that Anthem is turning out to be something fun to play. It's further surprising that it's an action-shooter, not something in developer BioWare's core competency, and it's still turning out to be a fun playthrough.
Here's the full gameplay demo that left a lot of game journalists scratching their heads (in a good way) and simultaneously punching the air (likewise in a good way).
Something to get used to right away: The cutscenes appear to be in first-person and your character is voiced. That's rare. Probably because it's weird to realize that you're the one talking at times and third-person characters are riffing off your dialogue in first-person.
You're located in the Strider, the mobile walker base that you catch a glimpse of the legs of in the opening moments. Your HQ's crew is a multi-ethnic. You get into the "Colossus" Javelin exo suit. The mission is called Scars and Villainy and comes with the descriptor: Find the Scar weapon factory and shut it down for good. Once you load into a mission, you move from first-person to third-person perspective. Numbers pop off of bad guys like a numerical fireworks show. These are devs playing the demo, but they don't appear to be talking. They're letting the NPCs (and the video's narrator) do all the talking, I guess.
But I ain't gonna lie: Anthem looks good yo. I was apprehensive before watching this demo. But I'm now shifting from a Hard Pass to a Definite Maybe on this one.
Anthem launches February 22, 2019, on PC, PS4, and Xbox One. Unless there's a major sea change at Sony, there won't be cross-play involving the PlayStation.
