Anyone been playing today? I am actually enjoying it, other than the couple of crashes and a glitch with the "Launchpad" area which I had to close the game and reopen it to fix it. Performance is not bad but the tearing in the cut scenes is annoying. Still has the audio stutter on some of the loading menus but other than that the audio seems alot better than it was in the beta etc. Put in about 4 hours today, got some real world work to do in the morning tomorrow and then gonna jump back in to it.
Downloading now on both mine and mrs pc’s. Using the 10 hour trial in both cases to see if it’s something we want to purchase. We enjoyed the demo Vit may as well take advantage of the trial (would be silly not to tbh).
Played a few hours of the trial this evening and I'm enjoying it; performance seems worse since the beta though, but it could be server related.
So far wanting to pull my hair out... The Good: - Looks nice - Gunplay mixed with elemental combos works well and feels good - er... It runs ok I guess (although I am seeing dips below 60fps on my main PC (see sig)) The bad (oh boy!) - Loading screens... so many loading screens - Loading times - granted I am running the game off of my HD but even if they were halved it would still be too long! - Everything done within Fort Tarsis feels like a chore. NPC's are forgettable and just moving around feels sluggish (apparently running will be added in the full release on 22nd?) - The menus and UI feel like they were designed to be as clunky as possible. I am playing on a Xbox Elite controller so it can't even by the normal "console" excuse. For example; why do I have to hold buttons to do anything when said buttons have no other action (thus you wouldn't actively press them in normal play?!). - Mission variety so far is non existent. I am early on so this might be a little unfair but right now isn't doing its best to draw me in to the story (the NPC's really don't help here). - No FOV slider. May not be an annoyance to some but I would like the option. The broken - General connection issues are rife. I have been kicked back to the main menu more times than I can count. Unfortunately this leads us back to the loading problem.. - Invisible enemies - Running with my wife I would often die before I see an enemy she is already shooting. When the game re spawns you, it does so outside of the mission area causing another loading screen.... yep! - Kicked to desktop. Happens completely at random and means more loading.. - I have had multiple instances of the Forge not loading my Javelin. This means I cannot change load outs or utilise any of the new, more powerful weapons or abilities. In many ways this is game breaking as you level up! Despite my somewhat negative response above, I do see potential in the game. I imagine the broken aspects will be ironed out and the mission structure may very well improve as I get closer to end game. Right now though it feels like a right slog to get there!.
That's it! I'm done with Anthem. Maybe they'll fix it; maybe I'll try it again in 6m. I haven't had the invisible enemies that xaser mentions above but I have had / agree with everything else. I was only playing to co-op something with a mate but I was loathing my time in the game due to: load screens; not seeing your loot until you go back to town; not being able to change your inventory outside of the forge; lack of feedback that I'm being shot (and I find the life/shield bars too small and too out of the way); completely unforgettable fights; boring open world; terrible, jaw achingly terrible town; it's such a chore to get a drop and try something different on your char - get the drop; back to town; load the forge; use the shitty interface to look at your new items; swap them around; launch. Did the developers/designers actually play the same front end we have to suffer through! It does run really well and looks amazing, if a little too graphically busy during some fights, but graphics doesn't make a game worth playing. I can only think of one thing that Anthem does really well - it makes you realise how slick Destiny/Destiny 2 now are! I truly regret buying this 'AAA' game!
Well here it is: How BioWare's Anthem Went Wrong The short version is that it was an even bigger shitshow than Andromeda.
https://blog.bioware.com/2021/02/24/anthem-update/ It's now officially official, Anthem is abandonware, no further development, no new content. Joke's on anyone who paid money for it.
The silver lining for anyone clinging to their copy in the fading light is that generally online abandonware titles get picked up and saved by the fan community with P2P mods or hacked servers years later. c.f. AvP2, Matrix Online.
