It’s live, it’s pretty cool, and even for those of us who have been paying some sort of attention to what minimal lore and story that has been released, doesn’t provide much clarity.
Spoiler alert (which is a guess) – I think this is the origin story of The Monitor, the big bad guy in Anthem.
Watch it here:
I’m guessing that because of what we do know about this video. This is an event from 15 years before Anthem. And watching the video a few times you see a woman who was in the forest alone, and rescued by a freelancer. Who then trains and becomes a freelancer herself
That woman is seen interacting with something, and her friend / ally obsessed with the possibility. Cue the connections. Also there is some betrayal for some reason, not entire clear.
That’s a very simplistic take on what is there – it could absolutely be anything, including a separate, side story that has nothing to do with the current day setting of Anthem but it doesn’t make much sense to me to get Neil Blomkamp of Chappie, District 9 fame to put together a 3+ minute short that didn’t have some sort of narrative tie in that people could get excited about.
What did you think about it? Those who haven’t followed Anthem much – does this do anything for you? Those that have – any theories or ideas behind it?
I came out more confused than anything. There’s no setup since it feels like a movie preview. In that I mean that the actual story is already there and cherry picked, rather than a prequel that establishes something.
I have this thing I do with previews. I watch it on mute with subtitles to see if that helps make sense of it.
Now if this is preamble and there are 3 or 4 other similar shorts… that can certainly be neat.
Yep, on its own its not enough. But as part of lore history IN game, or more shorts, it could make sense.
I think the main “good guy” ends up being the monitor. Timeline it jumps around but I think I made sense of it.
An you’re a super fan!
Yup, a fan, and STILL confused, and not fully sure what I am seeing. The two ways I see it is that the “good” guy ends up being the monitor, over something he learns about the woman, or the exact opposite – the monitor wants the girl (for something about how she can interact with the Anthem) and he is just her friend.
Leaning towards the first only because there is that “you betrayed” us scene, which I am guessing is their Freelancer friend reporting something about her, which turns the “good guy” against them..
Also could be 100%, completely incorrect but hey, guessing is fun!
If they’d sold this as a trailer going in, it probably would have been received better. As a cohesive story or short film, this is a disaster. It’s much too confusing. However, as a teaser for Anthem, its setting, and its story, it works very well. I definitely want to learn more now.
The comments from Neill indicate he had enough content for 20-30 minutes – but there was no budget for that. They ended up shooting 10 minutes worth and cut it back to the 3 and change for release.
I bet even the 20 minutes of footage explains far more than shown. Hopefully it comes out someday (indicated as a possiblity..)