The latest Bioware Anthem stream showed off a ton of gameplay from the upcoming multiplayer, co-op shooter RPG. The game’s contracts system was shown off, which promises daily, random faction questions. Mouse and keyboard gameplay was also a focus of the stream, with developers diving into control setups and more.
Anthem lead producer Ben Irving headed up the latest developer stream of the game. Joining him was senior level designer Emily Taylor, and two more Bioware developers. The squad was tacking a legendary contract, one of the higher-tier missions within the game’s contract system. Taylor described the contracts as a way to develop “emergent quests” that were added to give more meaning to the game’s factions. A particular NPC, known as an agent, tasks players with completing contracts to gain insight and favor with the agent’s faction.
Contracts have constantly changing parameters, and introduce a level of randomness to the game’s missions. Legendary contracts are multi-stage missions given by agents that dole out special rewards upon completion. Each stage of a contract is generally more difficult than the last, and a separate difficulty level can be set before embarking on contracts. Higher difficulties will grant players more rewards.
The Anthem stream also highlighted the deep mouse and keyboard controls supported on PC. Sensitivity sliders are available for aiming, zoomed aiming, vertical aim, flight, and swimming Precision and response sliders are also available for mouse and keyboard users. Full remapping is available on keyboard, with support for multiple key binds per action. Few actions appear to be bound together, although flight and sprint are labeled as the same action with the same key bind in the build shown.
Anthem has been compared to other co-op online shooters like Destiny and The Division. Whether it copied similar games, or just happened into the same style won’t matter when the game launches. Anthem is out February 22, 2019 on PC, PS4 and Xbox One.
