EA's Executive Vice President, Patrick Söderlund, came on stage to close out Microsoft's E3 2017 conference with an extensive look at BioWare's new IP Anthem. We got a rather bare idea of its premise with a cinematic teaser that played at EA's conference yesterday, but the developer has a lot more up its sleeve with a nearly seven-minute gameplay trailer.
Creative Director Jon Warner narrated the pre-alpha demo being showcased in 4K, revealing more concrete details about the story, mechanics, and world that players will be able to explore sometime in 2018. A remnant of humanity is trapped in a settlement called Fort Tarsis surrounded by dangerous sentient and feral aliens (calling to mind Xenoblade Chronicles X), and individuals named Freelancers brave enough to venture into the expansive wild don exosuits called Javelins to plunder its lands for new equipment and XP. There are not only different types of Javelins, such as the well-rounded Ranger or tank-like Colossus, but also fully customizable options to tailor them with stats and abilities to your liking. Much like The Division, it seems to be multiplayer-oriented with drop in, drop out co-op. There are the traditional side quests that NPCs will give you, which is demonstrated at the beginning in a first-person interaction that actually has great motion capture and facial animations. But that's not all, since there are world events, too, called Shaper Storms that will unveil new parts of the story, but what these missions entail is unknown as the gameplay ends with four players venturing into an electric storm that might be a portal of sorts.
With a dynamic world powered by the Frostbite engine, fluid third-person shooter gameplay, and jaw-dropping setting, Anthem might just be a drastic return to form for BioWare if this footage is any indication of the game's potential. For incoming information, you can follow its official Twitter account or sign up for emailed updates via the main website.
Do you think BioWare has something good going for it with Anthem? What other types of Javelins would you like to hop into? How about certain abilities and weapons? What do you think these Shaper Storm events might be about? Fly down into the comments section to let us know your impressions of Anthem.
If you want to know more about this and other announcements happening at E3 then be sure to check out our E3 2017 Coverage Hub.
