Anthem's Next Demo Will Have More Javelins For VIPs

Anthem's VIP demo weekend didn't go so well, but there's good news for those who took part — and VIPs who might not have jumped in. When the public demo opens this Friday, every javelin will be available to use for those with VIP access. That means those who pre-ordered the game, or those who subscribe to EA or Origin Access.

We reported early last Friday about the Anthem demo's troubles, and unfortunately, they extended well into the weekend. Those who weren't outright denied from logging in experienced a host of issues, including severe lag, frequent disconnects, and loading screens that would occasionally freeze in place. To EA's credit, its customer support Twitter account was extremely active during that time, tweeting out regular status updates to let players know where issues were discovered, and providing news when bugs got squashed. Unfortunately, problems lingered on for many — even when EA thought fixes were in place — and left a lot of those who'd looked forward to the demo frustrated.

The company's mea culpa — in the form of unlocking every single javelin in the game — certainly won't make up for the time that players lost trying to join the fray. It will, however, give those players a bit of an extra advantage ahead of Anthem's launch on Feb. 22. Getting to play with all four javelin types will give VIP demo players a sense of which frame type suits them best, and that'll be highly useful when they dive into the full game and experience its story and early missions for the first time.

Aside from all of the demo problems, there's a lot to look forward to in Anthem. It's a game that very much has BioWare's fingerprints all over it, from the characters that inhabit Fort Tarsis to the way Anthem's gunplay takes a backseat to the unique abilities of each javelin suit. The early preview only showed off a small slice of what Anthem hopes to provide, but if the wider experience is as entertaining as the content in the demo was, there's a good chance EA and BioWare have a winner on their hands.

Anthem launches worldwide on Feb. 22. Origin Access subscribers will get to play the game one week earlier than that, on Feb. 15.