Watch a full Anthem mission in this 15-minute gameplay video

The Anthem alpha test that ran in December was pretty good stuff, I thought. Very Destiny-like, which may or may not be a selling feature in your eyes, but it looked great, ran well (aside from a spot of network wonkiness on the first day), and the Javelin's flight ability was a lot of fun: The controls aren't the best, but that's life when you're flying with a mouse, and I really liked the heightened sense of mobility and map scale that aerial movement provided.

If you didn't get a chance to play the alpha yourself, you can now see what you missed thanks to a 15-minute "Lost Arcanist" gameplay video, courtesy of IGN.

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The video covers the full mission that was available in the test, a search for a guy who went missing and... well, I don't recall and quite honestly probably didn't really know at the time anyway. (Bad people were shot, things blew up in a satisfying fashion, and the disembodied voice—not a Ghost, but a ground support operator guy back at base—kept me pointed in more or less the right direction throughout the adventure.) It also showcases the three specialized Javelin classes: The heavy, lumbering Colossus, the quick, cutting Interceptor, and the mage-like Storm.

Anthem is slated to come out on February 22, and we'll all have at least one more chance to try it before then. A "VIP demo" for preorders and Origin Access subscribers will run January 25-27, followed by an open demo on February 1-3.

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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.