BioWare continues to keep a low profile when it comes to updates for Anthem, but, it seems, that doesn’t mean the studio is not working on the game! The most recent update to the Public Test Server adds several new weapons and here you can check them out, thanks to forum user 1nfinityEagle. The new Legendary and Masterwork guns do elemental proc damage and have a much more appealing looks and style! Several other elements have also been added or improved – the Cataclysm map looks a lot better, the weather effects are more severe and impressing, Inversions are shoved into your eyes as soon as you enter the instance, even the main loading screen has a new blue filter on!
All areas inside the new instanced zone are now functional and all encounters are also working. The final boss Vara is in a much more finished state compared to the first iteration – abilities and mechanics have been added and balanced.
Thanks to a player, who you might have encountered on the EA Answers forums as 1nfinityEagle, we got a closer look at some of the new weapons that are being added to the game with the Cataclysm update.
These weapons have been extracted from the War Chests, available from the Seasonal Store in Fort Tarsis. The store owner is willing to trade your hard-earned new currency from the Cataclysm event (the red Crystals). At the time of this publication one War Chest costs 1100 Crystals.
The weapons inside are Masterwork of Legendary. 1nfinityEagle shared a video of 50 Chests being opened. Out of them 7 Legendaries were extracted. With the Luck Stat gone now, the loot in Anthem seems to have found itself in a much better and healthier status, though still kind of a mess, thanks to the randomness of the Inscriptions.
Before we jump to the more interesting part of this article (the images), let me remind you that with the Cataclysm Update BioWare is introducing new tier of Masterwork and Legendary items. The highest available Masterwork will be 66, while the Legendaries will be 80.
Each Legendary and Masterwork item will still have four Inscription slots and they are still arranged in the same way they were before. If you don’t know or have forgotten how stats are rolled on weapons, check the linked Inscriptions Guide above.
If you have read The Art of Anthem, you may have seen some weird sci-fi designs of weapons that were not available when the game launched. The first E3 gameplay trailer showed Jarra’s Wrath and it is among the weapons coming with the Cataclysm too.
There is no official information how many and what types of new weapons are coming with the Cataclysm just yet, but thanks to this, we can have a look at some of the new top-tier guns and their special perks (the orange text).
I have shown you only the Legendaries here. If you are curious to see more, check out the full video of 1nfinityEagle opening 50 chests.
Here is a playlist of Anthem PTS clips that will show you the new abilities and weapons in-game. The clips are recorded by forum user RubyJavelin. Unfortunately, the bitrate of the recordings seems to be way too low and that results in a lot of pixelization during gameplay. Still, a great gesture and a lot of effort from the user – all worth an applause and a thank you note at least!
The Cataclysm event will not be a one-time event that will just appear for a few weeks and disappear. There are no further details of what is going to happen after the first eight weeks, but BioWare at least confirmed that we will have more after that.
When the update lands on the live servers there will be a couple of weeks of “preparations”. During them you will be able to play through the three new missions that will present you with the story that leads up to the Cataclysm. After that the following six weeks will offer the real event. Some of the areas with puzzles will most likely locked the first week. BioWare is going to slowly unlock them as the event progresses.
Weapons are not the only new thing about the Cataclysm. Do you remember the many complaints of how stale and boring the Cataclysm-related weather effects looked like when we first saw them in the Dev stream a few weeks ago? Take a look at the following few screenshots to see the latest updates to the map, environment, effects and UI.
