Anthem Early Access is Live — Experience So Far

Actually it has been live for about 14 hours now. Of which I’ve been able to spend a good number playing. It has been glorious. Don’t ask me for a review or anything terribly coherent right now, as I have no doubt that the honeymoon effect is in full force.

What I can say though, is that asides from the first 40 minutes or so of the game being live where everyone was trying to flood in at the same time, it has been incredibly stable — both server and client.

You might also recall that in my VIP demo impressions, I became quite adjusted to the mouse controls and was worried at the changes coming for live. Well, I shouldn’t have worried. Yes — it feels quite different, but undeniably for the better. The automatic centering of the flight reticle in particular was a change I thought I’d be turning off immediately, but it feels great.

So if you didn’t get on with the M+KB controls during the demos and had resigned yourself to (at least flying with) a controller; give them a go again and you’ll likely be pleasantly surprised.

Microtransactions

Origin will sell the shards in your local currency if it is a currency they normally support, but in US Dollars¹ the pricing of Shards are as follows:

• 500 Shards – $4.99
• 1050 Shards – $9.99
• 2200 Shards – $19.99
• 4600 Shards – $39.99

Note that if you have an Origin subscription, you will get 10% off those listed prices.

Depending on the size of the pack you buy, the price of the Epic Armor Sets (incl. helm, chest, arms and legs) will cost between $7.39 to $8.48 each.

The Rare materials and Uncommon graphics cost between $2.61 to $2.99 each, and an Epic emote will cost between $3.48 to $3.99 each.

What is the Coin income like, if I’d like to not spend real money?

Early impressions are positive. In my time today I’ve made almost 12k 24k coin² just by playing, on top of the 40k coin you start with. However, that is with the benefit of completing the daily challenges and the weekly challenge in amongst that which would have bolstered my early rates.

On the other hand, I believe that in the end game when you get Masterworks or Legendary drops (not positive on Epic) you also get a coin drop alongside.

So be sure — I’ll come back to this later with a better view of how things stack up with the challenges completed and a view of what a typical coin income might look like.

As noted above though – early impressions are very positive. It appears to me that even starting from a 0 coin base, you could grind out the coins you needed to buy even an expensive armor set you wanted before the featured items cycled around to something else without throwing money into the game.

I believe this to be true with the 10+ day cycle we’re seeing, which would allow for 10 sets of dailies, 2 sets of weeklies, 2 sets of alliance coin incomes all on top of your normal play income. Depending on where you were with your monthlies, possibly a set of those as well.

Back into the Fray!

And with that, I’m back into it! My intent is to have a complete review out on or before the time the full-launch comes about on the 22nd Feb, so keep an eye out for that. :)

Over that time I should be able to complete the main story and get a fair taste for the end game, see what the final impressions of coin income is like, how much interest the loot and gear holds (already feels quite promising though, relative to the demos) and that sort of thing.

If there are any burning questions in your mind though, feel free to drop a comment or message me on Twitter. :)

1. I am a little miffed however my Aussie friends get a better deal than us Kiwi’s on the exchange though. :P
2. 12k was after perhaps 4-5 hours in-game, 24k is where I’ve ended the night after 8 hours in-game.