We show you how to become the ultimate freelancer in Anthem

After months of hype, BioWare’s massive online epic has finally arrived – granting you to the opportunity to fly around like Iron Man and help save humanity from world-ending threats. But getting started in Fort Tarsis can be an incredibly daunting experience, so whether you’re a newcomer looking to learn the ropes, or deep into your adventure, here’s a handful of tips and tricks you should definitely be aware of.

Avoid overheating

Yes, this one’s obvious – but it’s also the one you’re most likely to forget in battle. Overheating in the middle of a firefight can make you incredibly vulnerable, so make sure you leverage downward trajectories and waterfalls to keep your engines cool should you need to utilise them in a pinch.

Choose the right Javelin for you

By the time you complete Anthem’s early tutorial you’ll be given the opportunity to choose between four Javelins to take control of. Each one has its own distinct style so choose wisely, because you won’t have the chance to alter that choice until you reach level eight.

• Ranger: the perfect jack of all trades, although arguably master of none
• Colossus: brute strength is the name of the game with this tank – trading speed for power
• Storm: seen as the magic-user class that focuses on abilities and being airborne
• Interceptor: the most agile of the foursome, packing a range of melee attacks

More details about the Ranger class

You’ll probably want to avoid playing alone

This might be a no-brainer, but Anthem is not designed to be played alone. It’s a game that thrives on its squad mentality and communication as hordes of enemies constantly surround you. Go solo and the experience will be a relatively lonely one (and slightly repetitive) without any friendly banter, but if you decide you don’t play well with others, just make sure you change your settings to private.

And if you’re not, bump up the difficulty

If you can round up a bunch of friends, make sure somebody changes the game’s difficulty settings to hard. Anthem’s regular difficulty is a little on the easy side when part of a team, plus the drops for the bigger challenge will be more impressive.

Don’t bother crafting right away

Increasing the level of your Javelin occurs pretty frequently in Anthem, so don’t waste all your money and resources on crafting gear for a level you won’t actually be on for too long. The various drops during your missions should be more than sufficient to get you through to the endgame.

Learn more about gear and progression

Combos, combos, combos

Guns are great, but the way to deal the biggest damage is with the slightly confusing process of combos. Each combo requires a primer and a detonator – marked with a circle-within-a-circle symbol or four-point star symbol respectively. With the Colossus, for example, you can use the flamethrower to ‘prime’ an enemy, then the Lightning Coil to ‘detonate’ it. It’s worth pointing out that if you can team up with others for this process, but when you see yellow text saying “COMBO” in-game, you’ll know you’ve been successful.

If you have yet to jump on the Anthem bandwagon, you can buy it here.

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