The VIP demo for Anthem was released a little more than one hour ago and things are not looking good. Electronic Arts and BioWare claimed that this demo is not a beta and would represent the experience that gamers would be getting at launch, however this definitely feels like a beta.

For starters, we could not login at first at all as we were receiving numerous connection network errors. At some points the demo was claiming that the demo period was not live yet (even though it was) and at other times we were getting a connection network error regarding its maximum capacity.

EA has stated that it is increasing the maximum capacity for the Anthem servers but I have to remind you that this is a demo. A demo that should represent the experience that players would be getting at launch and not an open beta. And… well… EA and BioWare have definitely failed to deliver a working demo.

Assuming you get past these connection network issues, you’ll get to the main hub, talk to an NPC and then launch your first Expedition. And, guess what? The very first Mission is currently not working as the game ends in an infinite loading screen that for some reason also stressed our CPU while loading, reaching 70 degrees of Celsius; temps higher than those we witnessed in Assassin’s Creed Odyssey (and we all know how CPU hungry and un-optimized Odyssey can get).

Now when we got stuck at the infinite Expedition loading screen, we closed the game and tried to re-launch it. And, surprise surprise, the game did not work. The game got stuck in the main menu screen while trying to connect to EA’s online services, without giving us any connection network error.

We’ll talk about the game’s performance in a separate article, however you should know that this game will stress your CPU like crazy. So yeah, you’ve been warned.

Now if this is the day-1 experience that BioWare and EA are promising for Anthem, then count us out. It makes little sense to buy the game at launch day and we may suggest Anthem fans to wait a month (yes, a month) until all of the game’s connection issues have been resolved (or until there aren’t a lot of gamers playing it). Again, this isn’t a beta but a demo and EA and BioWare had more than enough time to fix the game’s connection issues (it doesn’t even have a queue line) and were fully aware of the amount of keys that would be available for this VIP demo; a demo that forced players to pre-order the game in order to play. Hell, imagine what would have happened if this was an open demo to everyone.