The characters were...okay I guess. They definitely don't live up to BioWare's more quality games of the past. I think it's a cool world though. Technology left over by some ancient race that basically left a world half finished is neat, and I like the art direction. It's just a shame the good stuff is buried under so many bad QoL issues.
This aspect deeply suffers from the things discussed in the big "Exposé" on the game's development, that the vision was unclear, the production cycle was rushed and they had to just go with what they created since their performance capture sessions were too expensive to iterate on.
The fact that they are doing performance capture is honestly something that bums me out a little. I'm not saying you can't do that in a BioWare type story experience and they clearly made
some kind of story out of it here... but even non-BioWare games featuring BioWare-esque storytelling - Witcher 3 and AC:Odyssey - those games developed a
system to handle over a dozen thousand lines of spoken dialogue just like BioWare used to, and so it isn't all hard-captured animation or fully hand-keyed, it's largely automatic, and that was the means by which BioWare managed to iterate and refine their plots and characters in previous games.
I would like to see Anthem solidified as well but personally I see perf. capture as a big anchor around their neck, and I hate to think the only reason they went with it might've been to avoid creating those "memeable" tired faces.
Not a lost cause though. If they continue developing in the same pipeline I have one suggestion to them: Stop making your characters end their conversation in laughter every time. It's awkward.
