https://i.redd.it/zrf1d92uh3031.jpg
Hey folks, I know things have quieted down here a bit but I figured I'd give a little back to the community in a way. On a lark I purchased the Anthem Collector's Edition Artbook. Why? I guess I was curious, plus I do love the overall art style and themes presented in Anthem, and these books are usually an interesting glance into what the original "vision" for what a project was and how it evolved, and this is no exception. I had posted this in another forum, but I figured I'd share the post here too.
I was able to compile some of the highlights into an imgur gallery for your perusal. If you want to just look at the gallery without my commentary, here's a link to the entire gallery. It's about 100 images long. I'll try to break down some of groups of images I found particularly interesting.
Intro - Cover and Original Concepts
Probably the saddest part of the whole book. Seeing what the original idea for anthem sounds bloody cool as hell. The concept of the "Bermuda triangle of space", having to kitbash gear together just to survive, and the bulkier/bashed together concepts of the mechs sound incredible not gonna lie. I particularly like their focus on taking design cues from Nasa. Gives a very "near future" vibe to the whole thing.
https://imgur.com/E3jF9geInteresting note is that the pilot was originally designed as female before any other concepts were explored.
The Ranger Javelin
The book has a ton of concept art about the Ranger javelin. You can definitely get the vibe this was going to be the "face" of Anthem, even if you haven't seen the box art, the sheer amount of included concept art for this javelin is quite impressive.
https://imgur.com/RxVxYjq (probably my favorite javelin concept. Love the duster concept)
https://imgur.com/gXemLEi (Just the sheer amount of iteration on the default face gear is nuts)
The Interceptor Javelin
Here you can see a wide variety of design experimentation, though all kinda come back to the "knife" concept. Kind of cool to see how it evolved from having wings to even having drones follow it around.
The Storm Javelin
Another interesting series of evolutions with this suit. Particularly how this suit design influenced the overall design them (or vice-versa?) of how the Dominion's overall aesthetic would end up being. Some of the early concepts look downright freaky. Like cyberpunk/mage-tech vibe kind of freaky with hoses going everywhere. Another cool concept about the dominion was this was going to be the type of suit that elites within Dominion society would wear and how having glamorous fabrics draped over the suit were a sign of wealth.
https://imgur.com/ZbyrdDT (Hello, would you like to hear about the coming of Cthulu?)
The Colossus Javelin
Apparently this was the most "straightforward" out of all the javelins to design and went through the least amount of iteration. Bioware basically knew it was going to be "the tank" and approached the design aesthetic from that perspective.
Weapons
One of the more interesting questions I always had about the weapon design, was why the heck did all of the rifles and guns etc had all those weird protruding bars and handles everywhere. Finally now I know. They're basically over-sized trigger/bump guards. Which, I guess makes sense if you're bolting this to the side of a large mech that's flying/jumping/exploding all over the place, you probably want to protect your hardware as much as you can.
https://imgur.com/VmCa4En (Apparently there were going to be "lines" of weapon styles based on what faction they came from. really sad this didn't get explored or shown off in the game.
https://imgur.com/lIzZGAQ (One of the grenade launcher designs appeared to originally only be for the Scars)
https://imgur.com/SqEg2VH (Did you know Rangers and Interceptors were supposed to have swords? I guess we were supposed to have neato retractable swords!)
Environments
One of the things that always bugged me about Anthem's current environments is how there are tons of buildings and small villages scattered all over the world, yet none of them appear habitable or lived in. Apparently there were plans to have settlements evolve and change as the game went on. And there were several other environments that never made it into the final game. Places like sulfur springs (ala Yellowstone) or massive lava fields or deep dark swamps were cut from the final game. Also loved to hear the variety of real world locales they got inspiration from for the various spots in the game.
https://imgur.com/tjlqpyW (really love these concepts of settlements utilizing old Shaper tech. Gives a nice Simon Stahleng vibe to it.)
https://imgur.com/d5i8Pbq (The launching off point of Fort Tarsis went through a bunch of iterations. They really wanted to nail the "epic" vista feel from here.
https://imgur.com/BlSAPw1The Forge of Ft. Tarsis was originally going to be a larger more detailed area, including a "hall of heroes" that would showcase javelin "models" of the current top players of a "leaderboards" function they had planned to implement. It would be kind of a "temple/church" setup.
Creatures
Ton of good stuff here. There was going to be a lot more creepy/bug-like stuff in this game, plus there were going to be these "ultra" sized creatures that would randomly roam the world and potentially be a massive fights you would have to loop in people to engage with.
https://imgur.com/h0aD6lz (The big chonky Leviathan. Not gonna lie, I hope they integrate this in the game somehow in the future)
https://imgur.com/GMNPDef (Titans sounded way cooler like this. Like they basically pop out of the ground/walls and you have to sort of "activate" them in order to fight them.)
Factions
Another section of missed potential. The factions they were exploring seem to indicate that there was a lot more planned. Like we would be visiting whole cities and doing specific quests for them. Each of them would be providing different rewards, and the layout of each city was unique and interesting. Really sad to see so little of this make the final game.
Sentinels
Probably changed the least from the final game. Your standard paladins/lawbringers to the whole world. Apparently they were going to have an "emperor"? not sure how it would have fit in the story, but I guess a "king" and "Knights" kind of thing?
Arcanists
This faction sounded really cool. Their cities would be based in super tall rocky outcroppings due to their overall lack of manned defenses as their faction is primarily focused on science and research. Nice "ancient philosopher" aesthetic.
Corvus
Apparently the "super rich fancyville" faction. Not much of the book shows this off, so it looks like plans to explore this city or faction were abandoned early on.
The Engineers
Basically Anthem's Aedeptus Mechanicus. This was going to be the group responsible for the design and manufacture of the Striders and lots of weaponry. Their cities were basically giant forges, with city-wide celebrations when a new Strider was built and launched. Pretty cool stuff.
Regulators
Not much on these guys. Liked the nomadic feel they seemed to be giving. Would have nice to have seen regulator camps springing up in freeplay.
The Dominion
The vibe here seems be "Future Tevinter". Lot of evil rich elite looking folks with a predilection for fucking around with nasty tech/shit. I get the impression we were supposed to infiltrate the main city to steal something here given the sheer amount of stuff here. Apparently they were also supposed to have massive "Crawler-type" mobile bases to setup shop and take over an area, and even these got cut too. Lot of missed opportunities here.
https://imgur.com/cKNSCSl (They were even supposed to have their own version of the Colossus!)
Here's the creepy techno-shit they were getting up to. Bioware really toned down or cut what these originally were going to look like.
Iterations on "The Monitor" kinda wish they went with the full gold mask imo. Would have stood out a bit more.
The Scars
Creepy Polluting Scavengers who apparently leave puddles of oil behind and destroy everything they touch. Didn't seem to have much on them. They're basically outcasts/regulators who've gone off the reservation or something, at least originally before they became full bug people that they are currently. Their whole shtick was apparently to take over and debase structures as they occupied them.
https://imgur.com/VHi3zJR (When there never is enough Dakka)
Striders
Nice blurbs on the reasoning behind the strider design. There were lots of plans to use these as mobile launch bases but never really got fleshed out as we know.
Legion of the Dawn Armor
Some nice early concepts of the Legion of Dawn and early javelin builds. Nice look here.
Shaper Tech
Definitely nailed the idea of these massive boring machines and odd structures left behind that we can only guess at. I guess they wanted us to do more exploring and spelunking inside these old ruins than we got to. Some really impressive concepts I would have loved to see more of in the actual game.
And that about covers it! Again, so many awesome concepts presented in this book along with the artwork. There's more in the book than I was able to present here, and it shows off more environment design and monster design I didn't get a chance to take more pics of (plus I figured it was getting massive already). Here's hoping we eventually see this fleshed out in the game at some point. There's just so much damn potential here. I really don't want it to sit in just some artbook that people will forget about, but I guess we'll have to see.
Submitted May 24, 2019 at 08:28AM by Greatcow99 http://bit.ly/30EXtjc
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