Bioware's Anthem is Like Star Wars, Don't Think Too Hard About The Science

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If you're a science fiction nerd, you may have hard questions after seeing the E3 trailer for Bioware's Anthem. What powers the Freelancers' powerful Javelin exoskeletons? With those crazy Shaper Storms, why is there wild life on the planet at all? Well Bioware wants you to leave those questions behind.

In an interview with CBC Radio, Bioware general manager Aaron Flynn said the team isn't thinking as hard about those questions. Certainly not as much as they did in Mass Effect.

"It's in a genre we call 'science fantasy', very much like Star Wars, very much like the Marvel Universe. You see a lot of amazing things happening, but we don't worry too much about why they are happening or how they are happening," Flynn told the Canadian radio station. "Mass Effect is really our hardcore science fiction IP. This is one is about having fun in a game world that is lush and exotic and sucks you in."

Bungie's Destiny has straddled a similar line in-between science fiction and fantasy. Remove the guns and high-tech armor and you essentially have a bunch of armored heroes fighting against space orcs and elves. The overall art style of the game stretches between a more science fiction aesthetic and straight up medieval armor tones, depending on the expansion. Anthem, so far, looks to be firmly going in one direction.

Flynn also stated that the genesis in the game was the team wanting to build a game that they could play with their families. Anthem is a primarily cooperative title, with teams of four Freelancers striking out into the world to explore.

"We were sitting around after wrapping our last Mass Effect game and we just thought about, you know, you get the chance to build a new intellectual property in this industry pretty rarely. So the fact that our parent company was giving us that meant we had to taken it very seriously," said Flynn. "We sat back and thought 'What's really fun now?' Ever since I've had two sons, I've always wanted a game I could play with them. This represents a chance for a lot of us to built that game we can play with our families."

Bioware's Anthem is coming to PC, Xbox One, and PlayStation 4 in Fall 2018.