The latest major Anthem update is now available for Freelancers to download and play. Patch 1.0.4 arrived Tuesday, March 26, bringing with it several changes and feature additions that Anthem players have been looking forward to for some time. Legendary Missions and Elysian Caches may stand out the strongest, but it's likely that BioWare's latest loot changes and quality-of-life fixes such as access to the Forge instantly in Fort Tarsis will be what Freelancers are most excited about.

First and foremost, Anthem 1.0.4 adds two big new features. Legendary Missions will allow Freelancers to revisit Anthem's story, replaying critical path missions over again at a much higher difficulty. These Legendary Missions will only be available via a single mission per day, though players can complete that mission as many times as they please.

Elysian Caches were initially very highly anticipated. These chests serve as a reward for fully completing a Stronghold, but require a key that can only be acquired once a day through a Daily Challenge. As a reward, Elysian Caches give out cosmetics including emotes and Vinyls. However, BioWare's now confirmed that armor cosmetics will not be one of the Elysian Cache rewards, which has disappointed many in the Anthem community.

Even more important than the feature additions will be Anthem's loot changes, as the game's community continues to request improved loot drops. Patch 1.0.4 does improve loot for Freelancers by improving the quality of drops that come from chests in Strongholds, Freeplay, and Missions, as well as drops from Apex creatures including Ursix, Titans, Furies, and Escari/Luminaries. The final change improves the loot from Stronghold bosses when playing GM1 difficulty and higher, increasing chances at Masterwork and Legendary rewards.

A handful of other notable changes were also made in Anthem's latest patch. The ability to access the Forge instantly, with no loading screen, anywhere within Fort Tarsis or the Launch Bay has been long requested. Anthem's auto-disconnect AFK timer has been cut from 10 minutes to 5 minutes, perhaps to help with server load. Hardware performance has been improved during certain effects like the weather changing, and dozens of bug fixes and balance changes were made to make Anthem play better in general.

BioWare continues to improve Anthem month by month, with March's 1.0.4 update perhaps being the richest addition to the game yet. The update is also delivering on BioWare's first post-launch content promises, as both Elysian Caches and Legendary Missions have been listed as March updates on Anthem's roadmap since launch. Now all eyes are on April, an even more demanding month. BioWare's dedicated itself to a new Mastery progression system, a Weekly Stronghold Challenge, Guilds, Leaderboards, and even a new Stronghold. Despite its controversies, Anthem -- and BioWare -- continue to move forward as promised.

Anthem is available now on PC, PS4, and Xbox One.

Source: BioWare