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[jviggy43]

Awesome, really hoping thus game isn't a let down.

 

[SmoothRunningGun]

Destiny and Anthem can both exist at the same time.

I hope Anthem will replace Destiny for me. I wouldn't buy d2 if anthem was out this year (contingent on it being good of course).

 

[D i Z]

So the Mass Effect that they really wanted to do instead of that half step Andromeda.

 

[ThoseDeafMutes]

Well one of the core concepts of fantasy is good vs evil, while science fiction is about the "What if" question (while both bend the rules of reality). From that standpoint it is clear what is what.

Fantasy are "What If's" too - what if magic was real, what if elves were real, what if gods were real? What if the mythology that we believed in the past was actually based on truth? What if Wizards and vampires were hiding among us in secret societies?

Plenty of Science Fiction contains good and evil characters. Hell, plenty of Star Trek contains clearly good and evil factions waging war or causing conflict. TNG shied away from considering people "evil" - TOS less so. Fantasy does not necessarily contain good and evil as absolutes, especially in modern fantasy.

Here's the thing - any fantasy story could be retold as SciFi, and any SciFi story could be retold as fantasy. Instead of Data being an android, now he's a golem or magical construct arguing for his protection under the realm's laws from a magi bureaucrat. Instead of Vampires being cursed by god, they're the unfortunate mutant children of the Asari. Note: the first episode of Star Trek that aired featured a salt-vampire. Even in absolutely extreme cases like Greg Egan's Diaspora, you could replace the technology with magic, and have people escaping a magical cataclysm of their worlds instead of a posited natural one.

The reason for this is simple. Neither science fiction nor fantasy are limited to reality, and both present counterfactual worlds. The difference is twofold - the first is aesthetics (rayguns and outer space instead of swords and elves), the second is the question of the supernatural and whether or not exists. The desire to combine these two into "Speculative Fiction" is directly brought about by the ease with which the aesthetics and the supernatural can be blended evenly by stories, they can blur at the borders enormously. A story can feature both ghosts and advanced technology (e.g. Ghostbusters). Is that SciFi, or Urban Fantasy? I wouldn't call it Science Fantasy because I think that's a really weak definition that doesn't really tell you anything about the setting.

Star Trek's categorization is problematic because it has such a diverse array of episodes that sometimes are exactly like Star Wars (featuring mysticism, unexplained phenomenon, concepts of faith and destiny, featuring adventure, not explaining things in detail) and sometimes nothing like it (cold and clinical science bullshit, murder mysteries, holodeck episodes, treknobabble, exploration based episodes etc). Star Wars is much more coherent, even in its spinoff TV series (the canon ones at least).

I think it to understand what Bioware wants to tell us here: It won't be "hard" SciFi. And that's all.

I think that much is clear. They'll take a more mysterious approach with less codex infodump to try and explain everything, but broadly speaking I don't expect the game to actually more or less plausible/realistic than Mass Effect was.

 

[ArkkAngel007]

The warlock class suit indicated as much, so it's good to see it confirmed.

Now to see some actual gameplay with context, not the pre-recorded tourist hike.

 

[CHC]

Funny because it looked more grounded than Mass Effect. Mass Effect is the series that uses "biotics" to allow people to basically dash, teleport, and use telekinetic force. Anthem just showed some flying mech suits which ain't no big thing these days.

 

[almostjuliuscaesar]

go all out with it. i want those javelin suits as ridiculous as possible.

 

[Falchion]

Space magic definitely seems like the way to go. I'd rather they just spend all that extra time on the gameplay rather than painstakingly trying to justify the tech.

 

[Imp the Dimp]

Fine with me. I honestly didn't bother with the codex in Mass Effect. Not even sure if this'll make a difference to me.