Anthem - scientific fantasy,but not science fiction in the style of Mass Effect

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The new game BioWare - Anthem, announced on E3 2017, refers to the genre of "scientific fantasy", like Star Wars, and not science fiction, like Mass Effect. This was told by Aaron Flynn during an interview with the CBC about the genre of the game and what it can be compared to from the past studio.

We call this genre a scientific fantasy. It's like Star Wars or the Marvel universe, where a lot of amazing things happen, but we do not need to worry about why they happen and how science fits there.

Mass Effect is a hardcore science-fiction IP, but Anthem is designed to have fun in a rich and exotic world that delays you.

Anthem is developed by veterans of BioWare as part of the Edmonton studio, which created SW: KOTOR. The game will include a vast open world where players take on the role of a freelancer studying unknown planets and defending humanity.

Replies • 61


Planetary

Sounds interesting. But it´s Bioware and probably Origin. I see a lot of microtransactions incoming.



Lunar

Sweet!  It bodes well to be the same group who did KOTOR.


Interstellar

Looking forward to seeing how they make this work.  I hope they manage to incorporate the story line into the entire game.  The Star wars MMO had an excellent story line, but it was basically separate from the multiplayer/end game aspects for the most part.



There is already a distinction between hard and soft scifi.. the distinction being that the former is very strict about scientific accuracy. Most scifi is soft scifi (including Mass Effect).



Pica das Galáxias

Science fiction : Star Trek.
Science Fantasy: Star Wars.
Mass effect fits somewhere between the two distinct genres, so in terms of BioWare style I think that's a good point of comparison.