After several hours with Anthem, I can`t say I`m particularly interested in it yet. I`ve completed some missions, upgraded my loadout, and gone on some more missions, but I`m not yet invested in anything I`m doing. I will, of course, keep playing, and I`ll be posting a full review in the coming days. There`s just nothing here so far that`s driving me forward. I`m curious, but only to see if my first impression--that this is a somewhat generic, Destiny-like experience--will be proven wrong.Anthem starts, well, kind of like Destiny 2. The Freelancers, who fight off threats using mechanized combat suits called Javelins, have fallen out of favor with humanity after a significant loss in the game`s tutorial mission. It`s not clear why this one failure is enough to discredit the Freelancers, but after a two-year time skip, they are scattered to the winds, now underdogs who must climb back up the ladder to `hero` status. This means starting with basic weaponry, even though you were a rookie two years prior and presumably have more experience since then. Your life revolves around taking contract missions from people in the downtrodden citadel that is your base, Tarsis, which you return to after each excursion.There`s a lot of jargon thrown around throughout the opening minutes with little explanation--it kind of feels like you`re listening to a conversation about people you don`t know, so none of it carries much weight. There`s also a long cutscene that consists of an NPC narrating background details for you, so it`s also not clear how much your character is supposed to know and about what. I did gather that there`s an ancient mystery at the heart of everything, but I`m not yet sure what exactly is intriguing about it. The story so far feels like a justification for why I need to level up and find new loot, rather than the groundwork for a vibrant sci-fi world that`s enticing to explore.Mission structure doesn`t help this much; so far it`s been going from point A to poi ...
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