Another year has gone by since BioWare pushed Anthem out the gates. In a month we will celebrate officially two years of Anthem and its (currently non-existent) live service. This article is an Anthem 2020 retrospect – RubyJavelin takes a look back through the past twelve months and reminds us of what we went through, what BioWare did for the game and how they continue to keep our hopes and expectations up!
Read RubyJavelin’s previous Anthem 2019 Retrospect summary article about the game’s first year, when we received a lot more content and support for the game. If you have “joined the party” later, this is a must-read and will give you a great insight of what how much the game did change since its release.
Hello Freelancers, RubyJavelin here. This year wasn’t fantastic for Anthem’s live service, not even going to argue that. However I will argue that it’s for a pretty fantastic reason. In May of 2020, we got proper confirmation of something that was pretty expected. Anthem is being remade. There’s a lot to discuss about the impending update, whenever it may be. However, this is a respective of 2020 as a whole and there’s a fair bit more to talk about than just that, so let’s get into it.
Table of contents
The Final Updates
Early 2020 gave us the last few updates that we will likely see to Anthem as we know it. Let’s start at 1.6.0, the Icetide Update. Why here when this happened at the end of 2019? Well, the event did end in 2020 and last year’s retrospective article didn’t go into full details on the update, only lightly touching on what was included, and the same goes for updates after that as well. So it seems like a good place to start.
Update 1.6.0
Update 1.6.0 was the last update that brought us anything new gameplay wise, bringing us Seasonal Strongholds. While not entirely new Strongholds themselves, they did however add quite a few extra challenges and puzzles to the existing strongholds as well as allowing them to be run for Minor Crystals.
The best thing the Icetide Update actually brought however, was not Seasonal Strongholds. It was the introduction of Tomb “Crafting”. Legendaries suddenly became much easier and more reliable to get. The only flaw in this system – it’s still random from a pool, much like Warchests are. More reliable than the full loot pool, but still not guaranteed.
Update 1.7.0
Anthem’s Update 1.7.0 is quite possibly the last update we may ever see until 2.0 eventually lands. Despite the small size of the update it set the tone for what to expect until Anthem 2.0. It was also the game’s Anniversary Update as well, which meant all players that logged in during the month long window they gave, got 4 free wraps for their javelins.
Shortly after 1.7.0, we got another addition that added something players had asked for for a long time – Legendary “Crafting”. The Regulator Store got a small rework and instead of selling crafting materials for coins, now sells a rotating selection of legendaries. We finally had a way to eventually get everything we wanted, barring luck and Coin supplies. While not true crafting, it did fix one of the last big problems, before updates stopped entirely.
Recurring In-Game Events
While updates did stop, the team has still kept up with giving us recurring major events, as well as minor “Festive” events in-game.
February/March – Game Launch Anniversary
This time window is nearly upon us again. Near the end of February, and into Early March is usually when we see the game’s launch anniversary celebrated. Last year, with the 1.7.0 update we got a handful of wraps for our javelins.
We may not see anything this year, but it still is very possible we do. It may not come with an update, but hopefully we will have more news regarding 2.0 to cover before then. Only time will tell. While it may be a long shot, I do feel like we could get something meaningful either a set of festive challenges in game or other things to celebrate Anthem’s second year.
August – Cataclysm
Anthem Update 1.3.0 launched back in August of 2019. August of 2020 saw them revisiting and re-enabling the Grabbit Ear Challenge in game, giving any new players their first opportunity to earn the Grabbit Ear cosmetics for their javelins.
I hope they do continue the trend of bringing this challenge back up for the event’s anniversary. Though, in General I do hope they consider at least fully enabling the Cataclysm in both forms to their full seven-event glory. It’d be nice that if they don’t, they can at least put a little time in for the live version of the game and at least have the events that are active to be randomly chosen past the initial starting event so it doesn’t feel as tedious to complete as it does now.
November – N7 Day (Week)
Being a Bioware title, of course Anthem celebrates N7 Day as well. While this time limited event only brings a handful of cosmetics, it’s still welcomed to see it being celebrated. For the longest time, I really enjoyed using the Quarian Helmet for the Interceptor.
December/January – Icetide
Finally, we have the most recently revisited event, Icetide which just fully wrapped up January 5th. This time it brought us some Festive events, as well as re-enabling the Coolant Harvest World Events in the snow-covered Scenery of Bastion.
What We Know About Anthem 2.0 So Far
This is primarily a recap of 2020 and what news we have regarding 2.0. While I’ve touched on some of the things regarding what’s been shown with the updates, but after more thought, there’s still much more to discuss with them. Pro, Cons, possibly routes we could be seeing Bioware take the game.
February Blog – Redesign Announced
Back in February, we finally got confirmation of what we had already suspected would happen… Anthem was to be reworked and given a massive overhaul. While the game was still receiving patches up until and shortly after this point, it still felt expected.
We still don’t have a time frame for when the game will be relaunching, or everything that’s being changed or added outside of details shared on Twitter and in blogs. What has been shown though does have a promising outlook for the game’s future.
July Blog – Loot Changes
The July BioWare Anthem blog has a lot of promises, but I personally don’t think it talked about things in enough depth to really form anything past speculations and general optimism. Though with this being the first time I’m covering this for Vulkk, I still want to get my thoughts out.
Starting out, we have mention of Bioware increasing the drop rates of items. They want to respect our time and have our items be useful regardless of the tier of item. As Vulkk himself mentioned in his coverage of the blog, Star Wars: The Old Republic recently nailed down it’s own loot system. While I don’t have experience with the previous system that was in place, I have recently played SWTOR and found it to be a very enjoyable experience in terms of loot. So if that’s what Anthem shifts towards, I’m honestly all for it.
Next we have Exceptional Items. While not directly said if it’s a new tier of item or not, it does give room for speculation. To me, I take this to mean that some drops will actually have a chance to be the highest tier and highest values guaranteed. Then it’s just up to you from that point to use the other systems in place to really make it do what you need it to. At least this would be my hope for what was meant. This would curb a lot of the current mentality towards loot to where it’s layer upon layer of RNG, which would reduce it to just a few.
Following that, my hopes are further solidified when they say:
“You can pursue specific loot without relying on randomness alone; Quests; Specialized Vendors; Unique Loot Tables”
To me this screams that they want to make it easier to get the things we want and need for our builds. To what extent these systems are utilized still remains to be seen, but it does give reasonable expectations that assuming all goes well, Loot in 2.0 will be a much better experience.
Finally, for the more direct changes then talk about the “core” loot systems that everyone wanted since the 1.0 launch. Modifying Loot, Re-rolling inscriptions and Leveling Items. All of these systems are big in their own way, all of them with positive impacts towards how the game plays and how metas could develop in the future.
Then they go into some of the more minor things to expect, but even these more minor sounding feeling features could have a huge impact. Like the Stats screen. While small in nature, the utility it provides alone is still quite helpful in determining the impact of changing gear around.
First is better on screen displays and the ability to equip things as you loot them. Both of these are pretty minor for sure, however the ability to equip as you loot will certainly impact how strong you feel early game.
Then Rare enemies are mentioned, where they are described as “walking treasure chests”. I’ve always been a fan of random “loot pinata” enemies. While they often tend more towards disappointing, the random event of seeing one once and awhile is still a positive one.
Next are new UI areas and elements. The preview of Brin’s shop is very interesting to me still. While this is speculation based on placeholder assets, here’s my thoughts of what this could possibly mean.
“Critical Quests” sounds like a replacement for Legendary Missions honestly. It’s not stated whether or not this is early game or not, so it could also very easily just be story quests. “Daily Contracts” is almost certainly a replacement for Legendary Contracts, but only time will tell how useful they are for loot.
“Weapons” and “Power Weapons” feel like shop items. These are all placeholder assets, so it’s likely the shop will offer at least 6 weapons, 4 basic weapons which are of lower rarity and 2 higher rarity options. What exactly these options will do or offer again remains to be seen, however if everything can be powered up to a usable level, there’s a good chance we could see solid use out of these options.
Finally there’s the Equipment Sheet, which appears to be a reworked forge. There’s a lot to be speculated on here. First thing I noticed is how the Power value on the right seems to likely be an average of all the player’s equipped gear (perhaps similar to Destiny), rather than a total power like we have currently.
It’s uncertain if it will stay this way, but it seems stats may be getting condensed into just a few main stats, rather than several. This may work akin to SWTOR’s stat system, where each stat has a handful of effects, but different ratios.
Primary may be generally Offensive stats, like current Damage rolls Specialty may be a combination of Utility and quality of life stats. Where Defense will likely primarily be Armor, Shields and likely Damage Reduction. It’s still unknown what their plans are.
It also appears that instead of six components, we may be down to just four gear slots. These may just be vehicles for Mods, but it’s uncertain what the change from components to armor sets may be like in a future release. High-end Gear Sets can open up a lot of variety without too much hassle, but at the same time it’s also a risk if it backfires, often with just one or two sets dominating the “meta” builds.
Finally we have Mods, which seems like our ability slots. Going off the skill tree preview we got later on for context, Javelins may be limited to a much more narrow set of abilities per advanced class. These mods might be how we actually gain current Masterwork effects, or similar bonuses in this new system. It’s still yet to be covered in detail.
October Blog – Skill Trees Preview
Having covered the Anthem NEXT October blog previously in more depth here on Vulkk, I’ll go light on the details/speculation here. It’s worth reading the full post if you haven’t already.
The October Blog is where we got our first glimpse into Skill Trees. From their blog, they seem to have intentions of still allowing plenty of choice and experimentation in our builds. The Skill Trees, at least from what I’ve gathered seem a little more restrictive. It’s possible we may end up with less abilities to use overall, but they may end up being far more customizable than before.
First, we’re given a view of the Loadout page. This seems to be where you can change everything from your guns, your abilities, your artifact and even your ultimate! How far they can be changed or be modified may lie in Mods, as stated before but they also make note that Artifacts are also a huge source of our customization as well.
The skill trees themselves seem pretty basic, offering a few branching paths, but nothing visually exciting. Hopefully they provide us plenty of meaningful power and options. The Specializations seem to be a way of getting specific skills and bonuses for our whole javelin, but also not clear if everything is tied together. It’s mentioned skills are permanently unlocked through the tree and upgraded with mods, but not if one specialization has access to bonuses and skills of another. Another thing we’ll have to wait for more information on.
From what was shown though, there is room for customization options. It’ll be good to see how far the modding and such goes in terms of sticking to their words.
Studio Departures and Conclusion
There’s just a few last things that need to be discussed, and what, if anything they could mean for the future of Anthem.
First, we have more of Bioware being pulled from other projects to work on Dragon Age 4. With these staff changes, Christian now seems to be doing the same thing for Dragon Age 4 as he was for Anthem. This leaves Anthem in a weird space though, as we have yet to be told who will be continuing the blog posts and talking with the Anthem Community.
This isn’t too likely to impact development. While Christian is an Executive Producer, him joining the DA team really shouldn’t impact anything. While his position is a higher one, he is still in the same studio, so there’s the possibility that he can still raise or bring concerns to the Anthem team as needed, though will have his hands full with DA. Christian seems like he doesn’t want to leave the Anthem Community high and dry though, stating in a Tweet:
“Happy Friday Anthem friends! I hope it’s OK if I check in now and again. Rest assured the Anthem prototype team continues. Appreciate your patience as we get through this transition and change at the studio. Have an amazing holiday and new year, all!”
Happy Friday Anthem friends! I hope it’s OK if I check in now and again????. Rest assured the Anthem prototype team continues. Appreciate your patience as we get through this transition and change at the studio. Have an amazing holiday and new year, all! pic.twitter.com/vdakZCK5F4
— Christian Dailey (@ChristianDailey) December 12, 2020
Second, the announcement of the Mass Effect Remastered Trilogy. With this being leaked or rumored to be releasing soon, this will also likely not impact Anthem. In fact, after it’s released, it may allow for them to shift more resources back to Anthem’s update. It’s unlikely though, as ME’s team is primarily in the Edmonton studio, rather than Austin. It’s still a possibility, but not one to count on.
Finally, Bioware had a few big names from the company leave a few months ago, being Mark Darrah and Casey Hudson.
Casey was likely a huge driving force behind getting a team together to overhaul Anthem. Before Christian joined their team, Casey was the one to deliver updates to the community as the studio GM. His departure from Bioware will likely not impact Anthem’s Development. However, being the GM for Bioware’s Austin studio, there could be an impact made by his replacement. This impact could be positive or negative and only time will tell.
Mark’s position was Executive Producer for Dragon Age. With his departure, we’ve seen Christian step into that role now. So any impact that could have happened as a result from his departure has likely already occurred. So this likely has more impact on DA than it will Anthem for the time being.
With all of that said, that’s everything we’ve heard over the course of 2020 relating to the game’s final updates and the upcoming rework. Here’s to hoping 2021 brings good news for the Anthem community.
Personally, I’m still hoping we can get an early PTS for the upcoming anniversary. It’d be a longshot, and maybe only some of the changes will be in there, but I’m still of the mindset that getting feedback earlier than later would be better overall. If that’s a possibility or not heavily weighs on how much the team has gotten done. At the very least, I hope for something to celebrate Anthem’s anniversary with.
Hope all of you are having a fantastic 2021 so far and I’ll be looking forward to when we have more Anthem News to discuss.
