A couple of days ago BioWare pushed a new challenge to the live service of Anthem. It turned out to be a mistake. Today, however, we have the first real glimpse of the Cataclysm! The new Crystals-related events and several new challenges are not only available, but working and rewarding you with Coin and new cosmetics too. Keep reading to find out everything you need to know – where and how to find the events, how to complete them and what are the rewards they provide!
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BioWare promised that Anthem’s world will be constantly evolving. They also promised transparency… Well, today we can tell that the live world of the game is changing indeed. All that is happening under the complete silence of the dev team on all fronts. Keep in mind, of course, that it’s only been a few hours since the events popped in Freeplay and the weird Shaper-elements spawned.
Now, if you have been to the PTS, you have seen these and they wont be any news to you. Because the Cataclysm is not yet on the live servers, this means that the new currency (the Crystals) doesn’t drop from the new events either. There’s no Seasonal store yet to spend it on any way.
But what exactly is happening and how can you take part in it? What are the rewards! Let’s get to the fun part already!
New randomly spawning events have joined the rotation in Anthem’s Freeplay. Strange crystal formations spawn in bulk and you are tasked to collect them for Fort Tarsis. Because… reasons.
Players have reported that not all instances and servers have these active. Keep reading to find out how to check if the Freeplay instance you have just spawned in, has the Crystal World Events and the Oncoming Storm.
These events are nothing special in terms of objectives. They can be completed like any other Freeplay event and also drop a Chest with reward at the end.
The Crystal events vary slightly in their objectives. For the most part things go like this: You stumble upon a Crystal event area. You have to destroy the crystals by hitting the small ones and waiting for a larger ones to spawn in their place. The large crystal formations take some more time and effort, but they don’t fire back. The enemies spawning nearby do. The enemies that will spawn are more often than not Dominion, but Scar spawn some times too. I have seen Outlaws once only so far.
The objectives are simple – first you destroy the crystals, then you destroy the enemies (event is called “Crystal Harvest”). Some times you will see frozen Dominion troops nearby (event is called “Mysterious Crystalline Wreckage”). They cannot be killed until you destroy some crystal formations. Then they defrost and start attacking you.
Speaking of Challenges, a few new challenges have been added under a new category in the Challenges tab – it’s called “Echoes of Reality”. This is the name of the upcoming Cataclysm Event as well. Here’s the info for each one of them directly from in-game:
NEW DAILY CHALLENGE: STONETIDE
This one requires you to defeat 30 Crystalized Enemies. They are all involved in the Crystal events. The special units you need to destroy are the ones who have been frozen by Crystals. They only spawn (so far) as part of the Crystal events in Freeplay.
The rewards are 500 Coin and a new Decal. The Challenge resets each day around 12:00 GMT, together with all other Daily Challenges.
UPDATE: It seems that the Stonetide challenge does not reset or at least it doesn’t appear every day, instead it is replaced by another. On July 20 a new DAILY CHALLENGE appeared. I have described it below in another pargraph.
The Corruption Cure Decal looks like this. Keep in mind that all my Javelin models use the Legion of Dawn armor pack, so the Decal might look differently on yours. It is placed on the chest and shoulders. The Storm gets one on its cape too.
NEW DAILY CHALLENGE: ROCK BREAKER
This one became available on July 20, 2019. It provides yet another Decal and 500 Coin. Its objective is also tied to the Crystal events.
How to complete it? Destroy the crystal formation. For this challenge you need to destroy both the small crystal formation and the large one that may spawn in its place. If a large one spawns, both count only once for the challenge as this is what “destroying the crystals” really means. They are a part of either of the Crystal World Events in Freeplay. The new white crystals outside of events (the ones that provide ember and Champion of Tarsis points) also count towards this achievement. These white crystal formations exist in Missions as well.
To complete this you will need 4 to 6 Crystal events. Each event has on average 4 Crystals.
The Annihilated Decal is a nice small grey/blue-ish symbol, placed in the middle of the chest area and shoulders of all javelins. The storm gets its design painted on the cape as well. Here are the images:
NEW CHALLENGE: ROCK COLLECTOR
The second new challenge tasks you to complete three Crystal World Events in Freeplay. It is like the standard Daily World Events Challenge, but only counts the Crystal-related events. At the time of publication there are 10 (!) days remaining until it ends.
This one rewards you with 500 Coin and the Full Bounty Decal. Below you can see full overview of the Decal on all four javelins. It appears on the chest area as well as on the shoulders. The Storm gets a cool design on its cape too.
NEW CHALLENGE: THE ONCOMING STORM
The challenge accumulates in itself the smaller daly ones, but demands more activity, of course and also provides better rewards. It can be completed relatively quick, though. Especially if you are with a team in Freeplay and not solo. Doing it on a lower difficulty can also speed things up. I have to tell you, though, GM3 is a ton of fun with a group of 3 or 4 players. The highest difficulty tier gets a nice rework and with the removal of Luck with the upcoming Cataclysm Update, GM3 will likely become a lot more popular. Now, let’s get back on track and check the Challenge and its rewards!
On top of the 2000 Coin, here you also get a nice shiny (and very colorful) Graphic. Please, note: The gold/yellow accents on the Ranger are not a part of the Graphic. I forgot to switch this segment of the Legion of Dawn armor set to black before I took the images.
I completed the challenge in about two hours on GM3 in mixed solo and grouped with 2 or 3 other players. The thing that slows your progress the most are the regular other (old) events that spawn too. The challenge will end on Tuesday and at this point (at the time of this publication) there is absolutely no information from BioWare if this is going to be a one-time weekly or regular Challenge. You have about three days, two of which are a full Weekend! Go, go! Earn those free cosmetics for your javelins. It’s obvious you will not “stop the coming storm”, but why not earn cool decals and a graphic while it’s available.
Interesting note – I checked Normal mode a couple of times – just for a test – the shaping up Cataclysm in the sky was not there (nor were the gold spheres and the Elemental creatures), I could not find a Crystals event anywhere while roaming. In GM2 and GM3 they are present every time I enter Freeplay. It seems this is either a bug or the event is only available in GM1 and above.
So… Why are we collecting these crystals, the answer should arrive with the new Cataclysm update, which still has no release date, but it is obviously coming closer and closer. The last few PTS updates have been smaller hotfixes and community-provided changes. All Arenas of the Cataclysm map are functional already and the final boss has its mechanics added and working too.
NEW CONVERSATIONS IN FORT TARSIS
I can’t tell with 100% certainty if this conversation is brand new. It didn’t even pop up on the map until I approached Faye very close. She wants to speak about the “sample you brought back from that Dominion Camp”.
The conversation is nothing major, but provides a cool tie-up to what is potentially coming with Update 1.3 – the Cataclysm. I have recorded the convo, check out the embedded video below.
IMAGE GALLERY OF THE NEW FREEPLAY CRYSTAL WORLD EVENTS
These are a few random images showing the new events’ objectives, enemies, the crystals and a few more things.
If you have not been following the Cataclysm development and its full coverage here on VULKK.com, let me briefly tell you about it. This is going to be an eight weeks long event. The first two will be pre-event or stage-up. Three new missions will be made available, which will make the connection and introduction to the Cataclysm. I wont spoil the story for you, but want to urge you to play through the Sunken Cell Stronghold if you haven’t done so yet. :)
The Cataclysm will introduce nine new elemental-based weapons for all javelins as well as new melee weapons and abilities (one Primer and one Detonator for each suit).
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