Anthem: Understanding the excitement

Yet Destiny 2 is upon us and all I see in the games media is people complaining about that?

Thanks for sharing, it's interesting to see all the Anthem resources popping up. 

I'm curious, matthew, why set all that up? Are you ex-Destiny fan as others have suggested?

To me, BW is creating "Anthem" to renew its fanbase and attract new kind of players.
So, I'm not really surprised to see new groups flourishing here and there.... I mean, if they create this kind of game, it's because they know there's a public for it, even if it's mostly not their regular fans (and that's the point)...

What excitement?

I never said it's not attractive to all the regular fans (sorry if it wasn't clear), I just said I think they're trying to touch new players. And that maybe fans of their usual games won't be interest because, according to the reactions here (the only BW fansite I'm in), there's no real hype about this game. And according to the polls (this one is interesting bsn.boards.net/thread/11277/anybody-give-game ) many people are not interested or are just very scepticals for now, that's all.

Anthem is clearly not a RPG like Mass Effect or Dragon Age. Never told it was a "bad thing", it's just a different thing, play a shooter with friends, MP based, and 1st person on hubs (I don't recall 1st person before on BW games, but I only played the ME and DA series, maybe I'm wrong)... I just have the feeling this new IP is trying to stand out from the olders IP and that it wasn't done for fans like me who like to play alone and enjoy a very long SP story, that's all. I also talked with friends IRL about Anthem, they feel exactly the same... and guess what ? well, that's ok. Their game, their choice. If BW starts to create games that don't like, I'll just give my money to other companies

And BTW, I totally agree, we need more infos ....

Its got good graphics, graphics hype a lot of people.

I also think there are a lot of people who enjoy The Division and Destiny without being totally satisfied with them, so an apparent contender is welcome.

The lack of details allow people who want to get excited to project their own wishes onto the game. There's a risk that when actual details emerge there will be a backlash. Particularly since Bioware are for the moment avoiding giving any details that might disillusion anybody.

There's not much Anthem-related to talk about, certainly... 

I'll be signing up for your community then.
Hope you will pop in to say hello here, from time to time. 

Personally I got excited about it because the gameplay looks fun, which is about the only thing I can say since that's about the only thing that trailer showed off.

It's also a contender in the "shared world loot shooter" genre of Destiny, which is a genre currently without a reigning champion. The Division launched to numerous issues and Destiny was met with "Yeah it's okay" for the most part from what I saw. Whoever gets in with a home run in this genre is going to end up being the World of Warcraft of it and probably will survive for around the 10+ years that BioWare wants Anthem to if they play their cards right.

Though with Destiny 2 having a go of things, I'm a bit surprised that they aren't marketing Anthem harder and have just gone quiet after the announcement. Hopefully we don't get another ME:A level of marketing fail.

Fair enough. I certainly believe BioWare tries to expand their player base with every game they make. Even with the Mass Effect series and Dragon Age, BioWare always goes out of their way to try and accommodate newcomers. I personally wouldn't use BSN as a metric for gauging excitement towards Anthem. Official or unofficial BSN, many here represent the extreme fringe and aren't necessarily indicative of the larger BioWare player base. BSN also tends to be skeptical about anything and everything BioWare does. That's not to say many here are necessarily haters, just incredibly cautious and critical until the product has been released.

Anthem is definitely different from those, at least regarding being service-based and accommodating multiplayer. BioWare has experimented with 1st person a couple of times:



As I said, I've been playing BioWare games since KOTOR released in 2003. I've played every game BioWare has released, even SWTOR. While their model has been changed and tweaked over time, the main features and experience largely remains the same. BioWare has always made story-driven RPGs with choices you can make and compelling characters that you want to care for. That's not to say that Anthem won't abandon these BioWare staples that have been in place for two decades, but I seriously doubt it.

Anthem is just an opportunity to try something fresh with a new IP, but I don't believe that means abandon everything BioWare is known for. It's somewhat similar to when BioWare added in a voiced protagonist in ME1 with the dialogue wheel. Those were not in KOTOR and JE, and some complained they ruined the game and took away player agency. Regardless of where you fall, BioWare games are always changing and trying to get better with each new installment. That being said, BioWare has never abandoned their core base of gamers. Not in my opinion anyway. Someone will always disagree.

It's just really hard to get a sense of what this game is based off of that short demo. Once BioWare actually releases the features for Anthem, it should be abundantly clear whether this game will appeal to the single player BioWare folks or not.

I think you are on to something with that. I confess, I do take Bioware's world building for granted. Your first exposure to Bioware world building is usually a pleasant surprise, which was NWN for me. That set the bar and everything since has, to me, just been what I expected. And then FO3 and Skyrim came out and kicked the bar up a few notches and Bioware's been playing catch-up ever since.

But that's all in the RPG realm. You're right that co-op and MP action games haven't had as much Encyclopedia Codex world-building, with a few exceptions, like Halo and Borderlands. Certainly nothing to the depth of DA or ME universes.