Anthem Alpha Gameplay Takes Us Through Early-Game Mission “Lost Arcanist”

A new piece of Anthem alpha gameplay takes us through the early-game mission "Lost Arcanist" and gives us a good amount of insight into the classes too.

With Anthem being released next month, BioWare is finally starting to show off more gameplay other than what we’ve seen at the various events the game has been present at. This Anthem Alpha gameplay takes us through an early mission, and shows off three different classes and their unique abilities.

Anthem is BioWare’s latest offering to players, and one that is a make-or-break moment for the studio after the fiasco around Mass Effect: Andromeda. Taking place in a world half-finished by the gods, players in Anthem take on the role of Freelancers, who brave the dangerous outside world to complete missions and protect the city of Fort Tarsis.

The Anthem alpha gameplay consisted of a mission called “Lost Arcanist”, an early-game quest where players had to track down and rescue an Arcanist named Matthias, who is being attacked by hordes of an enemy type called SCARs. In addition to combat, we also get to see the unique abilities and playstyles of the Storm, Interceptor, and Colossus-type Javelins.

The combat in the gameplay ranges from fast-paced melee combat, to measured gunplay and the use of a wide variety of abilities, ranging from the Storm’s various magic attacks, the heavy artillery of the Colossus, and the various debuffs and damage-over-time abilities of the Interceptor.

The visuals are very impressive too, whether it’s the Storm’s lightning attacks, the game’s stunning vistas, or all of the various lighting changes that we go through over the course of the mission, which ranges from wide-open skies and cliff faces dotted with ruins to the closed-in chambers of some sort of dungeon built into the mountainside.

While you can see a number of different looter-shooter parallels with Destiny and The Division (dropping loot from downed enemies, areas where it’s impossible to respawn and dying likely means a game over), the Anthem alpha at least makes the game look like its own property enough that it could very likely be a lot of fun when it comes out.

You can see the Anthem gameplay on IGN’s official site or their YouTube page, or by clicking this link. Otherwise, Anthem will be coming out on Xbox One, Playstation 4, and PC on February 22.

Hunter is senior news writer at SegmentNext.com. He is a long time fan of strategy, RPG, and tabletop games. When he is not playing games, he likes to write about them.