ANTHEM

Developer BioWare Publisher EA Format PC, PS4, Xbox One Release 2018

If you were disappointed by Mass Effect Andromeda, here’s the game to blame; Anthem has been BioWare’s primary focus for the past few years. Some of the studio’s fans are unhappy, taking this as a signal that the days of BioWare making deep, singleplayer, story-based games are, if not over, then at least fading fast. Others – us included – are simply struggling to see the game beneath its all-too-obvious influences.

There are shades of Titanfall in its robot designs, and of any recent Call Of Duty in the class-based, but customisable exosuits. Others have pointed out similarities to Killzone Shadow

Fall or Dead Space or just about any sci-fi shooter you can think of. Mostly, there is Destiny. So, so much Destiny. It is multiplayer focused; there is loot; there is even a ten-year plan between developer and publisher. Anthem is, by a stretch, the betterlooking game, and it was a fine choice with which to close out a press conference at which Microsoft had announced the most powerful console of all time. Yet strip away the set dressing and you have Destiny with jetpacks, published by EA. Yes, we know, great artists steal. And sure, if you strip

Destiny back to the bare essentials it’s not exactly an original concept. And just as we have played a lot of Destiny, so we will probably play a lot of Anthem. But it will be tinged with sadness – at how one of the last of the big-budget story specialists has vacated its wheelhouse, and opted instead to follow the crowd.