There have been a lot of thoughts and hot takes going around the Internet lately regarding Anthem, BioWare and EA's upcoming shared-world loot shooter. Of all those chiming in there with their own opinions on the game though, we here at DualShockers have been quiet about the game for now simply because, well, we're not actively playing it.

For those unaware, Anthem went live on PC last week for EA Origin Access Premiere subscribers meaning that the full game is already readily available ahead of its "official" launch date of February 22. It has been a confusing, staggered release that honestly doesn't make much sense on EA's part, in my opinion, even though I know the whole point of releasing Anthem in this way is to get people to subscribe to their service. In the case of Anthem though, early indications seem to be that the product that was released last week is suffering from a variety of bugs and long loading times, both things that BioWare devs are looking to clean up in a Day 1 patch to coincide with this week's release.

To give you a peek behind the curtain, I had a feeling that this might be the case and as our Reviews Editor here at DualShockers decided we'd be better off reviewing the console version--specifically Xbox One--of Anthem when it releases officially. I also figured that a console review would be more in line with where most of our readers would potentially be playing the game as well, so it would be more helpful in this aspect, too. Because of this, we opted to forgo being the first out the door with a review and instead tried our best to cater coverage based on what we know our readers are looking for.

Additionally, these live service games typically have launches that are mired in issues and from the second-hand comments I've seen, that seems to be no different here. While this promised Day 1 patch likely won't fix every single issue found in Anthem, I figured it'd be a better final product for us to actually review and deem judgment on rather than the version of the game available on PC now.

We rarely are this forthcoming with our own plans for coverage here but after seeing how much Anthem has dominated the conversation in gaming circles the past few days, I wanted to be transparent with you, our readers, about what we have in the pipeline. Personally, I'll be the one reviewing Anthem and I expect I'll be playing it incessantly this upcoming weekend. Barring any major setbacks, I'm hoping to then have our final scored review for Anthem up on the site the following week.

Reviews are one of our site's biggest and most vital pillars and for nearly ten years now have helped define who we are. While this Anthem release is a bit stranger than usual, in the end, we will be just as transparent, honest, and critical with the game as we would anything else that we ever have reviewed.

As always, thanks for reading and thank you for your continued support of DualShockers.