Check out the Lost Arcanist and Triple Treat story missions

BioWare and Electronic Arts opened the doors for hands-on play with Anthem, the four-player co-op shooter set in EA’s first new game world in a decade.

The online game will keep evolving over time, but it has a campaign with a main story that a single or up to four players can complete. I had a chance to play the game at Electronic Arts’ headquarters in Redwood City, California. Overall, I had about six hours to play game. That was just scrating the surface, but I enjoyed the intense co-op firefights, the mobility of the flying mech suits, dubbed Javelins, and the beauty of the strange new sci-fi world. You can see a couple of my edited missions in the videos embedded in this post.

EA started me off with some tutorial missions that help the player learn how to maneuver, fly, and shoot. I also got a look at the game’s store and browsed through the Cortex, or the lore of Anthem. At the beginning of the story missions, I played a mission dubbed “Lost Arcanist,” where you search for a lost researcher named Matthias. The first video captures some about 10 minutes of that experience.

I engaged in a long bout of free roaming and moved to the demo missions, one of which is recorded in the second video. In that series of missions, you work with Matthias the Arcanist, who uses a mysterious technology that turns him into three separate beings. I also interviewed lead producer Mike Gamble of BioWare for a separate story.

Anthem debuts on February 22 on the PC, Xbox One, and PlayStation 4. A demo of the Triple Threat mission will be available for VIP purchasers on January 25 through January 27. Check out the embedded videos of our gameplay sessions.