Leap OF Faith

After a tough few years, BioWare hopes to rise again with a soaring sci-fi shooter.

- Jen Simpkins

Every bone in our body is telling us not to jump. As we peer over the edge of the platform into the waiting crevasse below, it’s astonishing how strongly our survival instinct kicks in. We’re aware that it’s only a videogame, but whichever way you slice it, leaping off a cliff while wearing a hulking great mech suit feels like a terrible idea.

It’s the details that contribute to the fear. To launch an Anthem session, we must first climb into our comfortably padded Javelin in first-person view. A camera swoops around the exterior, allowing us to admire our rig: our new helmet and breastplate, every scuff mark on our custom paint job. The suit feels real, tangible – strangely intimate, like a classic car we’ve spent hours fixing up. And then, suddenly, we’re asked to drive it over a cliff.

This isn’t even the first time we’ve done so – we’ve already played a good few hours of Anthem – but the terror persists as we clunk forward and jump. We hang in the air, gravity momentarily distracted, and our stomach lurches – before we remember to hit our rockets, and take flight. “Something that someone said last week that I actually think is really accurate is, ‘Every time I start flying, I panic a little bit and I have to remember how to do it’,” executive producer Mark Darrah says. “At the time I was like, ‘Oh no, that’s a problem’ – but I actually think it’s not. It’s actually the power of the game. Every time you’re jumping off a building, and every time the game catches you. But every time you need to jump off that building again. It’s looking for that leap of faith every time you fly.”