BioWare's first 'This is Anthem' video is a crash-course in Javelins and bad guys

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The first in a series of extended Anthem videos lays out the basics of the game's setting and story, progression system, and customization options available to Freelancers, the bold, elite, yet oddly underfunded pilots who protect humanity's fortified cities from the menace of the Dominion.

The video is a crash course on the mechanical side of Anthem, with information on the four different classes of Javelins, loadouts, and mission types, but the accompanying update on the Anthem website goes deeper into what you'll see and do in and around your home base of Fort Tarsis. It's got details about your crew, with whom you will exchange many bants as you run around shooting things, the different ways you can kit out your Javelin, and of course the bad guys, "a ferocious militaristic society in the mountainous North" called the Dominion. They've always been a problem but their new leader believes he can harness the power of the Anthem of Creation and turn it to his own ends, and that is a serious problem.

The update also hints at what will likely be copious amounts of lore than players who are into such things can partake of if they want, with references to the Legion of Dawn, which "fought back the deadly forces of this raging world and created a safe place for their people to live within," and their leader, General Helena Tarsis, for whom Fort Tarsis is named. It's not the sort of thing that's of much value when you're emptying your machine-gun into a crowd, but some gamers can't get enough of those fictional underpinnings and it sounds like they'll be well served here.

The next "This is Anthem" video will dive into "the expanding shared world," Strongholds and the "massive endgame." Anthem comes out 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.