Anthem isn’t the first non-RPG BioWare has made. It’s not even the company’s first shooter. But it is sufficiently different from the developer’s stock in trade that it’s suffering a bit of a backlash - particularly in the wake of E3’s revelations.
As it turns out, most of the game’s customisation is reserved for its exosuits, not your character. Conversation and dialogue choices will be mostly absent from the game’s missions. And there will be no RPG-style companions to accompany you, at least not at the game’s launch, which removes the potential for smooching with NPCs. This latter point in particular has upset a faction which, if they were labelled in a codex, would probably be called the Garrus Stans.
In the past, BioWare have produced some of the .
“Oh ffs,” shortly after EA Play’s Anthem reveal. “Why even bother calling it a Bioware game at all then?”
“Because BioWare is making it,” executive producer Mark Darrah answered.
It’s a pithy reply. But what if, instead of just retweeting, we took it as an invitation to dig into the BioWare-ness of ?
To study the available information on this co-op shooter and identify the common links with the studio’s history? Yes, let’s do that.
Swordplay and sanctuary
