It looks like Anthem’s long-awaited Cataclysm event is finally almost here

It’s been a long old wait for Anthem players hoping to catch a glimpse of significant new content in BioWare’s much-maligned shooter. Now, however, a sudden flurry of in-game activity suggests that the very-long-awaited Cataclysm event may finally be about to unfold.

Cataclysm, you might recall, was trumpeted as one of Anthem’s defining post-launch features prior to release, with BioWare promising a “massive, world-changing” event full of stormy weather and the game’s “most ambitious and challenging content”. Exactly five months after the release of Anthem, however, Cataclysm is still yet to arrive in the live game.

That’s not to say we don’t know what to expect from the eight-week long event, of course; BioWare held a fairly extensive unveiling back in May, and curious sorts have intermittently been able to experience some of its innards since June, via the game’s Public Test Server.

Over the weekend, however, players logging into Anthem’s live game (as reported by Game Informer) were greeted with three new Freeplay challenges, most notable for their name – “The Oncoming Storm”. These missions, running until Tuesday, 23rd July, task players with defeating crystallised enemies, finding crystals, and completing other events, and are accompanied by changes to the world in the form of crystals sprouting up across Bastion.

Back when BioWare spoke of Cataclysm in May, it mentioned that the first two weeks of its eight-week event would take the form of a “pre-event”, designed to set up the narrative for Cataclysm proper. It doesn’t sound like we’re quite at that point yet – the pre-amble was said to feature three new missions with “high quality cinematic scenes” and a range of Vanity item rewards – but current developments (the pre-event for the pre-event?) certainly seems to suggest that more activity is imminent.

If nothing else, those Anthem players still hanging in there have a few new activities to keep them amused – but dare we hope that, when Anthem’s current challenges end tomorrow, Cataclysm’s eight-week event will finally get underway?