I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: Anthem looks like a great 20-hour game, but it has an uphill battle on its hands if it wants to convince me to spend more time than that within its world. With the amount of hype, resources and development invested within Anthem, Bioware and EA need to make certain that this Big Mech with Cheese combo special is satisfying enough to keep players around not just for days, but months.

Love it or hate it, but Anthems bullet sponges are best tackled when with a gang of Freelancers as opposed to lone wolfing it. There’s nothing to stop you from turning off matchmaking and doing a solo hotdog run, but here’s the kicker: Stick to a squad and you won’t just have the satisfaction of digital socialising, you’ll also find some better incentives along the way.

EA and Bioware’s Anthem is throwing its Javelin into the ring, in an attempt to be the power fantasy tour de force of the year, and while it has plenty to love, it has a few gremlins under its hood as well. The biggest challenge facing Anthem is just how it intends to rise above being a great 20 hour game and create a satisfying investment of time that numbers in the hundreds of hours.

There’s a lot that needs to be fixed ahead of its full release, as the Anthem demo provided plenty of salient data for Bioware to sift through and highlight key areas that need a keen eye.

I like Anthem. I just don’t love it…yet.

Clocking in a couple of weeks ahead of schedule, EA’s upcoming loot ‘n shoot experience is just about finished over at Bioware studios. A long road has come to an end, albeit one that will now see the studio focusing on polish, squashing out bugs and checking its inconveniently oversized roadmap for the next route to take when Anthem goes live on February 22

Anthem has a pair of demos out this week and the week after that, kicking off for pre-order and EA Origin Access pals on January 25 and everyone else on February 1. What do you get for your gigabytes? A hopefully solid taste of Bioware back on form and ready to rock with their Destiny-killer that has you piloting advanced warsuits across hostile terrain and lighting up the land with lethal ordinance. Basically, a taste of things to come. Here’s the catch though: That taste may differ from the main course.

With a month to go until it releases, you might want to check your friends list as it looks like EA and Bioware’s Anthem is going in the opposite direction and will feature matchmaking for all of its activities according to lead producer Ben Irving. All of them.