After a bit of a hiatus, BioWare has returned with a new development update from the team currently working on making Anthem fun. While previous updates tackled loot and itemisation, this one is about skills, specialisations, builds and progression. One thing that’s hard to ignore is how similar the new UI is to Destiny’s. This is obviously all work-in-progress, but you can clearly see two columns of weapons and abilities on either side of the screen, with the character render splitting them through the middle. In gameplay terms, there are now 11 equipment slots, split across weapons, abilities and their mods, as well as the new artifact system. Components, as you might have already guessed, are gone, with mods now taking their place. This screen is where you’ll be able to swap weapons, as well as change and modify abilities. The goal with this new setup is make it easy to experiment and quickly try out different combinations. But that won’t quite work without also pushing for build variety. To address that point, BioWare is approaching the problem of lacklustre builds from a few angles. First, abilities are becoming unlocks every player will gain as they play. Builds will diverge with the help of mods, which are loot drops that won’t be the same for each players. A really good build works within the synergy of its abilities, specializations and equipment.
The Javelins themselves are also seeing changes to achieve depth in build choices. Every class now has three subclasses (specializations) with three unique skill trees, on top of the general, Javelin-wide main skill tree. The idea is to allow each Javelin to work across different play styles. As for artifacts, they work similarly to Destiny. These are unique for each Javelin type, and offer further ways to customise the build. The example given was a rocket pod for the Ranger that can be upgraded to turn into two back-mounted pods. There’s more on the official blog, but no information about when players will be able to get their hands on some of these changes.
