On the surface, Anthem and Fallout 76 don’t have a lot in common. One is a high octane action game that heavily emphasizes loot elements, and the other is a slightly more methodical survival title that’s more about exploration.
However, Anthem and Fallout 76 are bound by their status as games as a service title. To be more specific, they’re bound by their status as games as a service titles that are in desperate need of new content. The question now is, which game will benefit from that new content more?
Now that the developers of both games have released their DLC plans for the coming year, let’s take a look at which game has the better future ahead of it.
Anthem
Based on the first DLC roadmap that BioWare released for Anthem, we can discern a few very important things regarding their overall strategy for the game moving forward.
First off, you shouldn’t expect to see a lot of new content in the next month or two. The first wave of Anthem content (set to arrive in March) will largely focus on adding new cosmetics, some events, and a few missions to the game. It’s pure content, but none of it is exactly groundbreaking.
April looks like a more fruitful month for the game, but the nature of the content coming is still a little thin. New social features will help expand the size of the game’s social universe, while new mission and event offer more to do, but outside of the addition of a new stronghold, it doesn’t look like this month is going to drastically shake up the game in any significant ways.
Beyond that, we do get the start of what is being referred to as the Cataclysm, which seems to be some world-shaking event. Not much is known about that global event at this time, but it seems that it will be the first of two scheduled global events still to come (possibly before the end of the year).
It’s certainly possible that this global event will shake up the game’s story, which would be welcome given how much more impactful the story in Anthem is. While we do have to wait quite a while to get some significant new Anthem content, the good silver lining is that Anthem is entertaining enough to perhaps make it easier to swallow the idea of getting more stuff to do in the game over the next couple of months rather than any especially significant content.
Fallout 76
At the moment, Fallout 76 is in rougher shape. Its gameplay isn’t as satisfying as Anthem, its technical problems are worse, and it has been mismanaged by Bethesda since the title’s launch.
However, the next couple of months should be very interesting for those who remain loyal to Fallout 76.
From now until May, Fallout 76 will receive not only a new series of quests and items but special in-game events and some brand-new mechanics. For instance, players will be able to set up and run breweries as well as their own shops. There will also be new in-game cameras, a revamped PvP mode, and some updates later in the year that promise to offer entirely new modes as well as significant story events.
There are plenty of upcoming updates to Fallout 76 that feature little more than some cosmetic content, but it certainly feels like Fallout 76 is a game that will really begin in its second year due to the scope of the game’s upcoming content as well as the number of new gameplay modes on the way.
Which Game Has the Better Future? Fallout 76 or Anthem?
This is a real toss-up. On paper, Fallout 76‘s DLC seems more exciting in many ways thanks to the variety of content 2019 offers along with how much of that content we’ll recieve over the next few months.
However, Fallout 76‘s biggest problem remains Fallout 76. The fact remains that the game doesn’t benefit from the simple, yet enjoyable, gameplay loop that Anthem has going for it. There are a lot of mechanics in the game that need to be reconsidered, and a lot of those mechanics aren’t necessarily being addressed in the game’s DLC roadmap (except for the PvP mode).
Anthem, for all of its faults, is at least relatively satisfying to fans of the loot shooter. In the very short term, just having more things to do might prove to be enough to help keep its player base engaged.
While Fallout 76‘s developers clearly have some more ambitious plans for the game (based on what we know about), it’s Anthem that has the brighter future ahead of it (at least in the short term).
