Anthem's Tombs of the Legionnaires quest has been contentiously received. The quest requires Anthem players to complete a number of in-game gameplay tasks before being able to further progress in the story. Some, including certain game reviewers, have decried the quest, while others think the whole thing is silly and that the criticism is ridiculous, with Xbox VP Mike Ybarra being in the latter group.

In a post on Twitter, Ybarra responded to an article noting that Anthem's Tombs quest had already been improved to make it easier and faster for players to progress through. Ybarra says that he found the Tombs quest easy to do and that he is "amazed at the whining," while also criticizing early Anthem review coverage.

"This was actually very easy to do. Amazed at the whining. One reviewer, not the below, reviewed the game yet in the review cited that he didn't even know how to do a combo. Embarassing to review with such a lack of knowledge."

Combos are an Anthem gameplay mechanic in which ability effects can be combined to produce a burst of damage, and they are a required part of the Tombs of the Legionnaires questline. A player "Primes" a target with a certain ability and then "Detonates" the target with a second ability, resulting in extra damage and a large "COMBO" text burst above the target.

Much of the Tombs of the Legionnaires questline in Anthem requires players to perform or complete core aspects of gameplay that have not been overtly made clear through tutorial. BioWare's intent makes clear that the quest should act as a way to encourage players to learn these mechanics through experimentation, an educational ellipsis to ensure players are prepared before moving onto the latter part of the game and more challenging content.

However, instead of the quest feeling like a natural and constructive part of the Anthem experience, many players instead saw the Tombs questline as restrictive, punishing, and out of sorts. Ybarra clearly has an opposing view, that the Tombs questline is "easy" and that criticism of the questline is akin to "whining."

BioWare seems to be empathizing with its critics. In its update, BioWare has made the Tombs of the Legionnaires quest available earlier in the player's story so that they can progress through it more naturally and while doing other content including story missions. More changes to improve ease of progress in the quest are planned for Anthem's Day One patch.

Anthem releases on February 22, 2019 for the PC, PS4, and Xbox One. It's currently available in Early Access via Origin Access on PC and EA Access on Xbox One.

Source: Mike Ybarra – Twitter