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Christian Dailey, studio director at Anthem production lead BioWare Austin, quietly shared some new concept art for the game’s ongoing revamp, suggesting a focus on new factions and a potential pirate crew among them.
It is going well. Hopefully we can spotlight some of the focus areas soon – player autonomy, proper progression (loot/javelin), endgame…and Pirates…. What topics would you like to see? https://t.co/0EK3KzNat1 pic.twitter.com/mbywBumPW0July 8, 2020
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As Eurogamer (opens in new tab) spotted, Dailey shared the first bit of pirate art on July 7, showing a faction of either pirate robots or robot pirates (you can’t be sure). Labeled the Pirates of Blood Wind, the first snippet shows a grenadier class pirate brandishing a mix of explosives. Given the story of Anthem, this is presumably an enemy soldier piloting a robotic suit rather than a true robot pirate, but it sounds like BioWare isn’t ruling anything out at this stage.
Lots of good discussion around our Pirate friends and new factions. We want to share more on factions and the part they play in the future. One common question though is “where do the Pirates live?” Here of course …. Happy Friday all. pic.twitter.com/dhfFvNXGdyJuly 17, 2020
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This pirate art was only widely noticed after the more recent release of art showing the base where these pirates apparently live. Dailey also noted that “we want to share more on factions and the part they play in the future,” which suggests BioWare is building multiple factions to help flesh out Anthem 2.0 apart from just these Blood Wind pirates.
Is this less blurry? pic.twitter.com/LEecuLJrYVJuly 24, 2020
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Most recently, Dailey followed up the pirate base with a closer look at a mountain capped with crimson-leaved trees. I have no idea what, if anything, lives here, but I like those birds in the background.
It’s unclear how fleshed out these factions and environments are at this stage, nor do we know if they’ll be in the final update. The last formal update on Anthem arrived back in May, when Dailey confirmed that Anthem 2.0 is still a long way out. To add to that, it sounds like BioWare is still partly in the phase where it’s throwing things at the wall to see what sticks, with Dailey mentioning (opens in new tab) internal tests messing around with everything from battle royale to a Battlefield take on Anthem. He stressed that wild PvP ideas like those are “not the priority right now,” but there’s no doubt BioWare Austin is experimenting. Oh, and speaking of updates, it sounds like Dailey will publish another blog post (opens in new tab) relatively soon.
Anthem will remain in full hibernation mode (opens in new tab) for a while yet.
