Anthem Gets a 4-Minute Live-Action Trailer

Anthem is coming out soon, as all the recent open demos and such are indicating, and EA and Bioware are trying really, really hard to make it as big a deal as humanly possible. Really get those hype levels up so this can be the new Destiny that EA is desperately trying to turn it into. To that end, EA has decided to pull out the big guns: they actually hired the director of Elysium, Neill Blomkamp, to direct a nearly 4-minute live-action trailer for the upcoming game. And it looks… like a lot of wasted money.

From Neill Blomkamp, Oats Studios and BioWare comes a live-action trailer of survival set in the world of Anthem, decades before the events of the game

Now, no one’s saying it’s not impressive, as from a purely technical standpoint, it’s one of the most impressive live-action trailers I’ve ever seen. But it also kind of highlights how generic the world of Anthem is, doesn’t it? There were several points in that trailer where you could tell me I was watching a Destiny movie and I would have believed it. And nothing else about the ascetics of the game really stand out as flashy or different, so when I finished watching it I wasn’t left feeling like I saw anything particularly new or interesting. There are dozens of Sci-Fi movies out there that hit the same astatic. This didn’t leave me feeling anything.

Still, it’s got well over a million views so far, and a good number of thumbs up from people, so maybe other people are an easier sell on this kind of thing than I am. And again, for as cliché and kind of boring as the whole thing is, I can’t deny that it’s still good looking.

If it actually makes a difference in sales, though, we’ll have to wait until February 22 to find out.