Anthem guide - beginner's tips, replay missions

Anthem sees players take on the role of Freelancers, diving into a world of mystery and monsters. We've been collating guides since the game's launch period, with the many updates from BioWare tweaking things behind the scenes, though the success of these patches is up for debate. Still, there's stuff to look for should you so wish and our guides will help you with this.

Anthem guide

Below are some more focused guides on things like Javelin loadouts, the best skills, and even some mission details. There are also some guides on getting Anthem to run well on your PC, whether it is the graphics settings or which control settings you should consider for the game. More of course will be added as the game is released and more is known about the game.

Anthem guide contents

Replay missions

Anthem seems to want to keep you from replaying many of the game's missions easily. Perhaps this is to prevent farming for experience to keep the game moving, or reduce the potential for loot farming by taking on shorter missions at higher difficulties. Later in the Anthem Endgame, you'll be able to take on some repeatable contracts for each of the three main factions in the game, but if you just want to experience some of the story missions again, you're going to go through a few hoops.

There are a couple of workarounds you may wish to try. Firstly, BioWare did at the very least include a Quickplay mode which will drop you into a mission for another player that has enabled functionality for others to join. Simply go to your Javelin in Fort Tarsis and select the Quickplay option, followed by the difficulty setting you wish to play at, in order to get started.

The other way relies on you having friends. While still in Fort Tarsis, press the "Esc key", or "Start" if you're on controller, to bring up the map. Switch over to the Social tab in the menu and invite players to your team. You can either have players in your friends list, or those you have assigned as favourites from previous encounters, to join up with. Provided they're at an earlier point in the game, you can have them choose the mission. This will only work up to a point however, so you'll eventually either have to progress the story further to unlock the repeatable contracts, or jump into Quickplay.

Using radar in missions

Given that the game is a lot more vertical than its contemporaries, finding your objective in the various Anthem Missions require you to know just how high or low you need to go to reach it. This is where the navigation radar at the top of the screen comes in. It will flash in certain directions (north, south, east, and west) to show you which way you need to be.

When there's an arrow in the centre of the radar, this indicates whether you need to be higher or lower. If it shows a dot, you're on the correct level. There is also a similar widget that displays where your teammates are in relation to you. This works in almost exactly the same way, only it is white instead of green, and the bigger the arc indicates how far away they are to you. It can be useful for trying to find your teammates should you ever get separated and need to repair them.

How to fly efficiently

Flying around in Anthem is one of the more exhilarating things you can do and is a great way to navigate around the world. That said though, it can overheat rather quickly, meaning that you'll be spending a lot of time waiting to take off again if you're not careful. So when flying around, take these tips into consideration:

• Fly as close to water as possible, even if it isn't a lake or river. The spray will cool down your jetpack, indicated by the blue colour, thus reducing the rate it rises.
• Flying through waterfalls or into lakes and rivers will instantly cool off your jetpack.
• Diving straight will cool off your jetpack, so practice climbing and diving to extend your flight time. It may look really silly, but it works.
• Don't fly anywhere near lava as this increases the overheating rate.
• Some areas are cooler than others because of the weather, so be mindful of your route to the next objective.

Fort Tarsis

Fort Tarsis is the hub area of Anthem, this is where the bulk of the story happens, but it is also the where you can kit out your Javelin for future missions and improve your reputation with each of the three factions in Anthem.

• Pick up Agent quests and contracts from the different factions.
• Upgrade Javelins and personalise your Javelins's appearances.
• Buy items from the shop.
• Check on daily, weekly, and monthly tasks.

You can also have conversations with various NPCs in Fort Tarsis, progressing their stories and building on relationships. Sadly, none of these have any impact on your game and, in a drastic change from other BioWare games, there aren't any romantic options, but at the very least they do give a small boost to your reputation.

Anthem Javelins

In order to pull off the feats required to be an effective freelancer, you'll need a Javelin. These are essentially the four classes of the game, each one having a dedicated role to play in a team. Naturally you'd want one of each in a squad of four freelancers during any mission, stronghold, or even messing around in free play. You can find out more about the four Javelins in our Anthem Javelins guide, but as a brief summary, they are:

• Ranger - This Javelin is the all-rounder, but specialises in dealing damage to single targets from a distance.
• Colossus - A tank Javelin that specialises in dealing lots of damage to nearby targets, keeping enemy attention on it.
• Interceptor - A slightly weaker Javelin whose role is to dart around and dispatch targets quickly.
• Storm - The space wizard of the Javelins on offer, this one uses area of effect skills to Prime enemies for Detonation damage from other Javelins.

Anthem beginner's tips

Finally, we've got some tips for playing Anthem for you. More of course will be added to this list when the game is fully released, but for now here are some things to keep in mind when playing the game.

• Masterwork and Legendary items are mailed to you if you happen to miss them, but for everything else you need to pick it up. They're a lot easier to see now with glowing nodes.
• Enemies can drop health and armour as you fight, so pick your moments and heal when you can.
• As your shields break, there's a brief moment of invincibility. Use this time to get behind cover.
• If you are reduced to very low health, you'll soon regain all your shields and eventually your health will climb back up to half if you're not actively being attacked.
• If you are downed, an ally can come and repair you, so ensure your teammates are aware you're down.
• That Flare emote is more than just for show, since you can throw the flare down dark chasms to see ahead.

And with that, our Anthem guide is done, for now. Do check back to learn more about what Anthem has to offer as the game evolves over time.