Anthem PC – First Look!

After a rocky VIP release weekend, has Bioware gotten their act together to reignite excitement for their newest title?

Last weekend I gave the Anthem Demo a go only a few weeks away from their unfortunate VIP demo connectivity and bug issues I was a little more than cautiously optimistic about the experience. EA revealed a rather confusing release schedule matrix, but the full version of Anthem will be released for Origin Access Premier subscribers from the 15th of February, The rest of us get to play it on the 22nd.

ANTHEM MINIMUM SYSTEM REQUIREMENTS

OS: 64-bit Windows 10
CPU: Intel Core i5 3570 or AMD FX-6350
RAM: 8 GB System Memory
GPU: NVIDIA GTX 760, AMD Radeon 7970 / R9280X
GPU RAM: 2 GB Video Memory
HARD DRIVE: At least 50 GB of free space
DIRECTX: DirectX 11

ANTHEM RECOMMENDED SYSTEM REQUIREMENTS

OS: 64-bit Windows 10
CPU: Intel Core i7-4790 3.6GHz or AMD Ryzen 3 1300X 3.5 GHz
RAM: 16 GB System Memory
GPU: NVIDIA GTX 1060/RTX 2060, AMD RX 480
GPU RAM: 4 GB Video Memory
HARD DRIVE: At least 50 GB of free space
DIRECTX: DirectX 11

There have been reports of people with really beefy systems having issues with lag and frame drops, which I experienced to a small extent and only really in the hub world, I didn't notice any lag or frame drops during missions.

Once I started up the game I was waiting roughly 20 minutes before I had to give in and restart the game, after that it took a few minutes to load and I was in the game. Not the best start, but progress is still progress. You get a handful of options to start with, mainly to do with audio and voice options and then you're thrown into the game with a welcome screen and a few NPC's vying for your attention. You can only talk to a few of them as most are ‘locked off' in the demo itself.

After running around the hub world I found the quest giver and set out into the world. You have the option of choosing different difficulty settings, privacy options and missions before you're let loose. The game advised me to keep my setting's public as the game is “best experienced with other players”. I obliged and to my surprise, I was quickly matched up with three other players. There appeared to be no push to talk or any mic option at all…which probably wasn't a bad thing, but it's curious has to how you might communicate with your teammates if you need help or something like that. There are emotes but I didn't see a chat system.

I played with a 360 controller which worked fine once I plugged it in, but the options to look at controls and tutorials opened up a separate web browser and was mainly geared to world keyboard and mouse play. It took a few minutes of pressing-things-and-see-what-happens before I really felt comfortable playing.
After a few attempts, I finally got the mechanic I was most looking forward to, flying, which was activated by pressing down the left analogue stick while in mid-air. It was a real joy to use and a great way to cover the massive amount of ground that you have to cover during missions. I only played as the Ranger Javelin (the all-rounder), but some handy tips on loading screens did state that different Javelins had unique manoeuvrability, in particular, the Storm Javelin had the ability to hover.

The environment looked fantastic, the forests were lush and the water had steam vapour effects when we ran through it. the creatures were interestingly designed and the effects were visually impressive. The mission itself, however, was a pretty standard go here, shoot that thing, hold this position sort of affair, but it worked.

After roughly 20 minutes we completed our objective and were treated to a completion screen where we were awarded points and medals and various loot, I didn't play much with this aspect but there is supposedly a high level of customisation you can make on your layout to truly make your build quite unique. I had a lot of fun playing it, but it wasn't groundbreaking aside from the flying aspect it doesn't seem to do enough different from similar titles that already exist. I only got to see a little bit of the story in the part I played, but I wasn't massively engaged, but here's hoping the full release has more to offer! It's a little bit early for me to write it off completely, so I remain cautiously optimistic.

Kitguru says: There's certainly a lot of potential here, but already being riddled with bugs and server issues at such an early date, our hopes aren't too high.

Become a Patron!