Anthem Interview

During this year’s The Game Awards show, BioWare released a new trailer for their upcoming co-operative action-RPG Anthem that introduced us to the game’s antagonists, the Dominion. And if you’d like to learn a bit more about Anthem’s approach to storytelling, character interactions, and its overarching lore among other things, you may want to check out this Entertainment Weekly interview with the game’s director Jonathan Warner.

A few sample questions:

There won’t be Mass Effect-style life or death choices. How do character interactions change your story? Is there anything that you will gain access to by interacting with a certain faction in a certain way?

Yes, you gain reputation with the different factions depending on what you do for them. They will unlock different perks for you that usually you will be able to use to express yourself on your Javelin. Whether that’s a piece of [cosmetic] customization or a crafting recipe for a unique weapon or item, it would be something along those lines.

BioWare fans have come to expect romance options in the company’s games. Why are there none of those in Anthem?

It just wasn’t the story that we wanted to tell this time. We’ve done that across several games now, and for Anthem, as we were thinking about the story we wanted to tell and the experience we wanted to convey, I think we wanted something that was closer to Knights of the Old Republic, where you’re still engaged with these amazing characters, you’re feeling attached to them and close to them, but this isn’t a story about romance. This is a story about a company of heroes, and we lean into that aspect more heavily.