Anthem Will Include Running in Fort Tarsis at Launch

BioWare’s Anthem faced a number of different issues during its recent VIP access demo weekend. While the developer has promised fixes for many of them in the upcoming public demo, there was one heavily requested quality-of-life change left out. We’re talking about the ability to run through Fort Tarsis, or at least have a faster movement option. As it stands, walking through the hub area and gathering missions can get pretty tedious, especially when you want to knock out a few missions quickly.

Thankfully, it seems that sprinting in Fort Tarsis will be added to the full game, as per studio GM Casey Hudson when speaking to GamesRadar. Why was it taken out of the demo? Executive producer Mark Darrah also spoke to the site, and said it was to provide a contrast to constantly flying around in your Javelin. Making players “feel a little bit underpowered, so you really felt that strong difference between out of the suit and in the suit” was the idea, according to Darrah.

“We want it to feel like walking,” he said, “If you look at most video games, you’re sprinting everywhere and we gave you a jet pack machine for when you’re out in the world, and we really want it to feel like you’re just a person walking around and now you are that person in Iron Man armour.”

Hudson said that feedback had been heard, adding, “There was a run speed that was in [the game]. And then for some reason it was out of the game for when that particular build [the VIP demo build] was made. It is back in, in the main game, anyway.”

Anthem is out on February 22nd for Xbox One, PS4, and PC. Its public demo starts on February 1st and lasts till February 3rd. If you played the VIP access demo, then make sure you take part in this weekend’s demo as well. Access to all four Javelins will be provided.