BioWare’s Lead Producers Mike Gamble and Ben Irving hosted a live stream on November 1st to reveal new details about Anthem’s Interceptor and Storm javelin
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The live steam on November 1st was a mix of gameplay, Q&A and demonstration of the two remaining classes that have not yet received proper attention – Storm and Interceptor. I have already updated my ANTHEM Classes Explained: Javelin Abilities and Roles. To read (and watch!) more in-depth on each weapon type, gear slot and ability for all four javelins, please, check that link. Here today I will do my best to highlight for you the most interesting news that we’ve learned from the Dev Stream.
Mike Gamble and Ben Irving are both lead producers for BioWare and Anthem. In this stream we got to see for the first time extensive gameplay of the Interceptor and Storm javelins. Let me tell you a few words about each one of these classes.
If you want to watch the full live stream, I have the archive available for you at the end of the article.
THE INTERCEPTOR AND THE STORM
The Interceptor is a rogue-like class. it’s the smallest exosuit of all four, but also packs a deadly punch under its armor. It is arguably the most melee-friendly of the four and is most suitable for players, who prefer the “sneak in, stab-stab and get back” gameplay style. It has two deadly blades. Like any other Javelin, the Interceptor has five slots for abilityes – one innate melee, Assault System ability, Strike System ability, a Support System ability and an Ultimate.
The Interceptor javelin might not have the imposing silhouette of the Colossus, but it still knows how to pack a punch. The Interceptor excels at getting in close to inflict damage and weaken its enemies, then dashing away before they can react. With powerful blades and a full suite of devastating abilities, the Interceptor is both incredibly self-reliant and an excellent supporting teammate.
The Storm is the glass cannon type of a class. They can float without spending any resources. In fact, the Storm’s place is preferably in the air, not on the ground during combat. The Storm is capable of unleashing huge amounts of elemental power onto the enemy, but is quite weak when it comes to defending themselves and withstanding heavy hits is not their strong side. Like any other javelin, the Storm also has one melee skill, two based on their weapons (Blast category and Focus category), support ability and an Ultimate.
Developed by the Dominion in their Northern home of Stralheim, the Storm uses a powerful technology known as “seals” to boost the latent kinesis powers of its lancer. The result is a javelin that can float effortlessly above the ground and unleash the raw energy of the Anthem. Only through painstaking arcanist research has anyone outside the Dominion had a chance to wield the awesome potential of the seal technology. And while the Storm can channel unbelievable amounts of elemental force, it has little in the way of defensive capabilities and requires an expert pilot to stay above the fight and dish out damage from a safe distance.
The Javelins have Health Bar and Shield Bar. When the shield is depleted, you start taking HP damage. Once your javelin is out of both, you will have a limited time in which a team member may come by and repair you. If not, you will spawn outside of the battle area and have to rush back to finish the fight. Various tricks and abilities will allow you to more securely and safely “revive” your fallen friends during battle. The Storm’s Wind Wall ability proved very useful in situations like this, as we saw on the stream.
APPEARANCES, CUSTOMIZATIONS AND LOOKS
The level of customization in Anthem seems to be quite high. The gearing process and the appearance of your Javelins are two completely different things. How you look has nothing to do with how deadly your firewepower is.
Most of the customization options when it comes to decorations, paint jobs, outfits and so on, will come via microtransactions. Of course, there will be plenty that you can earn through gameplay – by completing challenges, doing missions and picking up loot.
At this point the devs were not ready yet to talk about what kinds of loot will there be available except for weapons and weapon mods, but they confirmed that there will be other types as well.
The gearing side of things, as I touched on in the beginning, comes down to how you want your javelins to perform. The mods you slot, combined with the pilot skills you have learned in your level progression, will determine what kind of a role you will play – support, damage or tank. There are no distinctive roles in Anthem, though. The “holy trinity” of DPS + Heals + Tank is not so vital here. At least not for most of the content.
Power can never be purchased with real money. This has been confirmed earlier already, but has been reinstated on this live stream as well. Power and vanity are different things. You will be able to spend real money for microtransactions and get the outfits and appearance you want to, but wont be able to increase your javelin’s performance with money.
The microtransactions will also not feature loot boxes. You will always know what exactly you are paying for.
GROUP CONTENT SCALING
Now that I (almost) mentioned group content, let me expand a bit on that too. The game is designed with scale-ability in mind. You can play it solo, with a friend or in a full team of up to four javelins. Based on the number of players, the instanced content will scale up in terms of number of mobs, difficulty and loot/rewards. In some cases, like in Free Play mode, you may encounter some world events that will prove to be too difficult for you to do solo. You may have to rely on a friend to help you complete them or simply avoid them until you get better equipment and come back to try again. Be careful, though. Some of these events are random, they may not be there next time you come back.
There are a number of different levels of difficulty you can choose from. So far we know that there are three “starter difficulties”. In a previous twitter message BioWare’s Mark Darrah confirmed that the end-game difficulty levels scale up in a system that is kind of similar to the one in Diablo 3.
FREE PLAY MODE AND WORLD EVENTS
The developers demonstrated a bit of the Free Play mode of the game. You can select it from the Forge and it allows you to… roam the world of Anthem freely. While doing so, you will no doubt encounter numerous random or not so random world events. They scale from small, quick and simple ones to massive disasters that require a serious team effort to fix or complete.
Every time you go into the world, things are different and unique. Different events will be available, creatures spawn randomly too. All of this should make exploration more fun and engaging.
Some time ago Mark Darrah mentioned on Twitter that each instance will consist of up to four players. This means that you will not have to wait in line for something to spawn in the world, but also you will have a chance to receive support if or when you need it from your friends. Each time you group up and enter Free Play, you and your teammates will always be placed in the same instance of the world.
Q&A
The Final 15-ish minutes of the stream were devoted to a Q&A session. Here is a lose transcript of what answers the two hosts provided to the questions asked in the chat, mixed with some more general information added by me (based on previously released info).
Is the game OK to play on the controller?
A: We spent a lot of time on controls. We have more buttons than many other games. It is very challenging to come up with a good control scheme that allows for all of these combinations to work in a way that is fun to play. The feedback from their testing comes very positive. Nine months ago the picture was very different and feedback was not so positive, so a lot of changes must have occurred.
PC Players will be able to set up whichever way of controls and combos you like. There is a remapping functionality available in the settings.
Actually, both of the hosts were playing on controllers during the live stream.
What kind of aerial trickery can you perform for aerial superiority purposes?
There’s the “always-reliable” dodge. The Dodge for the Storm, by the way, is a short-range teleportation. The javelin disappears and appears several meters to the side. Each Javelin has different type of dodge. The strike-in melee is also quite powerful. It allows you to jump on the ground and create a powerful area-of-effect around you at any given time while flying.
How many actual gear slots will there be?
Each suit has three specific gear slots. You will have five available gameplay choices for the two of these slots and two on the third slot. This is well explained and demonstrated in my Anthem Classes Guide, linked at the top of this article. For the most part the first two are offensive (in some cases Crowd-Control) and the third slot is the utility or support. The 5 + 5 + 2 available abilities for each slot will be expanded after launch with DLCs most likely.
There are two weapon slots that you can equip. There are some limitations as to which javelin can use what types of weapons, but in general you can put whatever you want in whichever slot you prefer. The Colossus is the only one who can use heavy assault weapons, for example. They cannot use pistols, though.
How You Heal
Each Javelin has two bars – one HP and one Shield. The Shield replenishes itself automatically during combat, but the HP does not. When the javelin is out of both, you go into a “down state” and have a timer in which your friend can repair you. During combat the only way to heal up is by picking up the red health goblets that drop randomly from killed enemies. These drops are per player and there is no guarantee that if something drops for you, the same will drop for your friend(s).
Full Video Archive of the Live Stream from November 1st
This is all I have for you about the Anthem Developer Live Stream from November 1st. I hope you find this guide useful. If you have any questions, leave a comment and I’ll help you out as soon as possible with whatever you need.
Check out some of the other Anthem articles I have available:
- How to Play Anthem Before Launch
- ANTHEM Editions Differences, Pre-Order Bonuses, PC System Requirements
- ANTHEM Classes Explained: Javelin Abilities and Roles
For more content on Anthem, check the NEWS and GUIDES sections to stay up to date with everything that Ubisoft does to the game.
