Honestly Anthem was so fucking good. It’s a victim of the internet hate machine.
My hobby is video games, but some people’s hobby is hating things, and those people decided that Anthem was the next thing to hate. The hate was insanely disproportionate to the actual problems that Anthem had.
The endgame grind needed some work, but that’s always the case with a live service game. Comparing it to Destiny, which had been out for five years at that point, there wasn’t a lot of content. Comparing it to video games in general, it was fine. Easily worth the cost of a new game.
Graphics-wise? Top notch, triple-A.
And as far as gameplay, the actual most important part of a game? Anthem was a fucking masterpiece. The combat was fun and varied. Classes were distinct.
And the traversal was the best I’ve ever played. Soaring through the air like Iron Man and dipping into a waterfall so my suit doesn’t overheat is one of the video game highlights of my life.
But the internet ruined it. The same outrage machine that was built to respond to things like “a sense of pride and accomplishment” was turned on Anthem, not because it was that bad, but because there wasn’t anything else particularly hate-worthy that week.
I think the worst thing BioWare did was ban people for loot exploiting when all they were doing was flying around in a loop collecting chests as they spawned. The players weren’t doing anything the game didn’t allow and banning them really created vitriol in the community. When added to the lack of end game, the player base just never got any growth momentum. It was really sad, because I was a huge BW fan and that game plus the loss of the Doctors really wrecked them (thanks EA /s). You could see the potential in Anthem, but it felt like a a great game engine waiting for the game to be written for it (honestly similar to pre-Forsaken Destiny 2, but even that had more content).
It’s got a 61 on OpenCritic, and Brad Shoemaker of NextLander said he thought long and hard about giving it 1/5 stars at the time (ultimately giving it a 2/5) because the game didn’t even really work when it launched. That wouldn’t really indicate it was just something the internet wanted to hate that week.
But yeah, some players had technical issues that were quickly patched. That’s how launches work nowadays. The reaction seems justified in a vacuum, but if you compare it to how glitches affect the scores of other games, it’s weird.
Cyberpunk 2077 still got good scores despite major technical issues that took a lot longer than a week or two to fix.
I can go buy the re-re-re-re-re-re-re-re-re-re-re-re-re-re-re-re-release of Skyrim and still encounter the same game-breaking bugs that I encountered fifteen years ago.
So I still feel like Anthem got treated unfairly here. If it was some bland, unimaginative game that didn’t do anything else well, sure, I get why they wouldn’t pull their punches. But again, the gameplay was immaculate. I don’t think I’ve ever seen a better game treated worse.
A big site redesign just happened at Giant Bomb, so I can’t view the review, but there’s typically a difference between an always-online game not working and some of the things you listed. Cyberpunk was reviewed on PC, and it mostly worked fine for a lot of people on PC, which is what the early review codes were sent out for. Skyrim crashed a lot but kept plenty of auto saves so you rarely lost progress. In an always online game, the functionality just isn’t there if the problems are related to server infrastructure. In fact, this is rarely punished in review scores, and the likes of the latest Flight Simulator are the exception rather than the rule for it.
But even when there weren’t infrastructure problems, people still weren’t thrilled with the game that was there when it worked.
And then the hate grew to the point where it was a meme, where everyone “knew” that Anthem was bad, even people who hadn’t played it. Then it was over.
I’m glad you enjoyed it, but that reputation spread because reviewers had a bad time with it. It wasn’t, like you said, because the internet just needed something to hate that week. And since it never got a No Man’s Sky esque update, I doubt the consensus on it would have changed much even if more people had given it a try after the fact. They certainly had the opportunity with steep discounts over the past few years. In that time, Destiny got plenty more attention and two or three other Borderlands games came out.
I don’t think we played the game because Anthem was boring. I enjoyed being Iron Man but after an hour. But after that, it was kinda same ol’ for the next few hours.
I had more fun with Suicide Squad, because the city was awesome and the story was at least passable.
I did like the first hour - no question. But I think Anthem needed to cook some more. A lot more.
Honestly Anthem was so fucking good. It’s a victim of the internet hate machine.
My hobby is video games, but some people’s hobby is hating things, and those people decided that Anthem was the next thing to hate. The hate was insanely disproportionate to the actual problems that Anthem had.
The endgame grind needed some work, but that’s always the case with a live service game. Comparing it to Destiny, which had been out for five years at that point, there wasn’t a lot of content. Comparing it to video games in general, it was fine. Easily worth the cost of a new game.
Graphics-wise? Top notch, triple-A.
And as far as gameplay, the actual most important part of a game? Anthem was a fucking masterpiece. The combat was fun and varied. Classes were distinct.
And the traversal was the best I’ve ever played. Soaring through the air like Iron Man and dipping into a waterfall so my suit doesn’t overheat is one of the video game highlights of my life.
But the internet ruined it. The same outrage machine that was built to respond to things like “a sense of pride and accomplishment” was turned on Anthem, not because it was that bad, but because there wasn’t anything else particularly hate-worthy that week.
I think the worst thing BioWare did was ban people for loot exploiting when all they were doing was flying around in a loop collecting chests as they spawned. The players weren’t doing anything the game didn’t allow and banning them really created vitriol in the community. When added to the lack of end game, the player base just never got any growth momentum. It was really sad, because I was a huge BW fan and that game plus the loss of the Doctors really wrecked them (thanks EA /s). You could see the potential in Anthem, but it felt like a a great game engine waiting for the game to be written for it (honestly similar to pre-Forsaken Destiny 2, but even that had more content).
It’s got a 61 on OpenCritic, and Brad Shoemaker of NextLander said he thought long and hard about giving it 1/5 stars at the time (ultimately giving it a 2/5) because the game didn’t even really work when it launched. That wouldn’t really indicate it was just something the internet wanted to hate that week.
I played it at launch. It worked fine for me.
But yeah, some players had technical issues that were quickly patched. That’s how launches work nowadays. The reaction seems justified in a vacuum, but if you compare it to how glitches affect the scores of other games, it’s weird.
Cyberpunk 2077 still got good scores despite major technical issues that took a lot longer than a week or two to fix.
I can go buy the re-re-re-re-re-re-re-re-re-re-re-re-re-re-re-re-release of Skyrim and still encounter the same game-breaking bugs that I encountered fifteen years ago.
So I still feel like Anthem got treated unfairly here. If it was some bland, unimaginative game that didn’t do anything else well, sure, I get why they wouldn’t pull their punches. But again, the gameplay was immaculate. I don’t think I’ve ever seen a better game treated worse.
A big site redesign just happened at Giant Bomb, so I can’t view the review, but there’s typically a difference between an always-online game not working and some of the things you listed. Cyberpunk was reviewed on PC, and it mostly worked fine for a lot of people on PC, which is what the early review codes were sent out for. Skyrim crashed a lot but kept plenty of auto saves so you rarely lost progress. In an always online game, the functionality just isn’t there if the problems are related to server infrastructure. In fact, this is rarely punished in review scores, and the likes of the latest Flight Simulator are the exception rather than the rule for it.
But even when there weren’t infrastructure problems, people still weren’t thrilled with the game that was there when it worked.
Some were, some weren’t. I was thrilled.
And then the hate grew to the point where it was a meme, where everyone “knew” that Anthem was bad, even people who hadn’t played it. Then it was over.
I’m glad you enjoyed it, but that reputation spread because reviewers had a bad time with it. It wasn’t, like you said, because the internet just needed something to hate that week. And since it never got a No Man’s Sky esque update, I doubt the consensus on it would have changed much even if more people had given it a try after the fact. They certainly had the opportunity with steep discounts over the past few years. In that time, Destiny got plenty more attention and two or three other Borderlands games came out.
I don’t think we played the game because Anthem was boring. I enjoyed being Iron Man but after an hour. But after that, it was kinda same ol’ for the next few hours.
I had more fun with Suicide Squad, because the city was awesome and the story was at least passable.
I did like the first hour - no question. But I think Anthem needed to cook some more. A lot more.