Anthem: 8 Reasons Why It Failed
7. Lore-Building Done Through Pause Menus
Show, don't tell. A core component of good storytelling that... Anthem doesn't follow.
There's a massive open world to rocket through, yet if you want to really learn anything about it, you've got to hit pause and scroll through the database. It may be in-game (looking at you, Destiny's Grimoire), but forcing players to not play if they want to scrape lore out of your title is an undeniable failure.
Think of the fictional worlds in this medium that you're invested in. The Elder Scrolls, Witcher, Bioware's own Mass Effect. All keep you invested thanks to the lore and world being developed through interactions with both it and the characters within.
Knowledge of different races, regions and more comes through dialogue and quests that you take part in, allowing the world-building to feel natural and cohesive across the game's structure.
Anthem too often sticks to the shortcuts of establishing a universe by way of exposition dumps, and that pause menu codex is really the only source to appreciate what's hidden under the surface. Bioware should've remembered the hard lesson Bungie had to learn with Destiny:
Codexes should be complementary, not mandatory for understanding a given universe.