Anthem's post-launch updates will bring cataclysmic events and new areas

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EA has offered a deeper look at the future of Anthem with a new blog post and trailer showcasing its plans for endgame content and major post-launch updates. Those updates, called "acts," will expand the game with "new locations, gameplay features, character interactions, and more."

Once players have finished Anthem's "core story mission," the focus will change to endgame content. That includes daily, weekly, and monthly challenges, contracts offered by NPCs, freeplay, and strongholds, "the highest-level challenges in the game" that will require a team to complete. The rewards, of course, are loot, including rare gear and personalization items, crafting blueprints and materials, and Coin, Anthem's in-game currency.

EA said that new missions, characters, and stories will be introduced over "the weeks and months to come," some of them small and others world-changing: The "most ambitious and challenging" new content will come in the form of Cataclysms, "time-limited world events that cause physical manifestations to occur: Extreme weather, incursions of dangerous hostile enemies, and new mysteries to solve."

The early steps into Anthem's future were laid out in a "gameplay calendar" breaking down the first act, Echos of Reality. Slated to begin in March, it will unfold over three updates that will include an expanded progression system, a new stronghold, the addition of guilds and leaderboards, new missions, and ultimately, the Cataclysm. There's no timeframe for any of this, but at least two more acts are set to follow.

James got to check out some Anthem endgame content for himself during a recent runthrough with a level 30 account, and he didn't come away entirely impressed: He described it as "a more stubborn, slower Anthem," with inflated enemy health pools that turned the experience into a "tiring, demeaning gauntlet." Hopefully it was just a bad demo, and not bad design. We'll find out shortly after Anthem goes live on February 22.

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Andy has been gaming on PCs from the very beginning, starting as a youngster with text adventures and primitive action games on a cassette-based TRS80. From there he graduated to the glory days of Sierra Online adventures and Microprose sims, ran a local BBS, learned how to build PCs, and developed a longstanding love of RPGs, immersive sims, and shooters. He began writing videogame news in 2007 for The Escapist and somehow managed to avoid getting fired until 2014, when he joined the storied ranks of PC Gamer. He covers all aspects of the industry, from new game announcements and patch notes to legal disputes, Twitch beefs, esports, and Henry Cavill. Lots of Henry Cavill.