There is a new video of Anthem gameplay out. This shows some of the systems, and a bit of the world. With that much speed and flight, the world is going to have to be immense to keep players engaged.
There is also a live stream: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V66xy1ERHmI
This is with a quest developer. Because of the speed of travel, and the speed us players consume content, there is some risk of rapid content exhaustion. They run through some “contracts” - an instanced and randomized event on fuzzy-rails (corridors) - this is their “End Game” content (quotes just for Oldpcgamer). They chose to showcase these because they are an important part of the game play. The quest developer themselves hints that they are repeatable. IMHO this has repeatable content written all over it. But really, only playing will tell.
The open world is pretty good looking, though they do show how high you can fly, and… it’s pretty limited as one would expect. After all, otherwise you get into curvature issues, and mountains can no longer contain you. For the most part the players seem constrained by mountains.
They also seem to need to join each other in a lobby and launch the game. I don’t know if this is a CoD lobby style of gaming, or just for their internal testing. But… I am now wondering if it is MMO at all, or just instanced online-multiplayer. It is also possible that it is both: Free Play AND Instanced Grouping - which is most likely. My only question is, just how massive is the freeplay?
The combat seems fast and furious. Lots of flash and action. But, there does seem to be a bit of bullet sponge happening. Which does not bug me (because it is really how most sword based MMOs work), but I know some people don’t like that play style in shooter style game play. It is clear that you will need some reflexes to dodge and to hit enemies in opened weak spots as needed.
Obviously it is a loot driven not story driven game. Itemization will be in line with games like Diablo. So random modifiers on loot. May the RNG be with you.
The UI is pretty standard, though I did note that even though it is multi-platform they do allow free cursor moving for a mouse, instead of locking you to hopping from icon to icon within the UI. There is a lot of stuff on screen, that really I think is a bit excessive (but I am a fan of minimalist UI). Over all it looks easy to understand, and fairly reactive.
Here is another YouTubers take of this Live Stream: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DuCHlSdZ4tA
Nice !