Anthem features cosmetic microtransactions that you can buy with in game currency (called Coin) or with premium currency called Shards. You can access the store by pressing escape in Fort Tarsis and navigating to the 'featured' tab.
Store items also populate the Forge. Shifting to the 'buy' tab in the Forge's gear menus will show you the items for sale. At launch most items require Coins, but a few have a Shard cost if you'd rather unlock them with real money.
The store's stock rotates every week or so. At launch there are six items to purchase, and the stock will refresh in 11 days.
What you can buy in the store
So far the available store items are purely cosmetic. In future there is scope for the store to sell specific armour parts and maybe even weapon cosmetics. For now the store selection is limited to the following items.
Armour packs
These unlock arm, chest, and leg armour pieces for a specific Javelin, which you can equip in the Forge after purchase. These are the priciest items in the first round of store products, costing 61,000 Coin / 850 Shards per set.
Materials
You can apply these to any Javelin in the Forge. They alter texture and pattern of surfaces on your Javelin. Metal: Diamond Plate is one of two Materials for sale at launch, priced at 12,000 Coin / 300 Shards. The other is a Fabric: Canvas Honeycomb at the same price.
Emotes
You can customise these in the 'Animations' section of the Forge. You get an arrival animation that plays when you join a group, a victory animation that plays on the expedition rewards screen, and three emotes you can use out in the world to communicate with players.
At launch the store features a Colossus arrival animation called Gum on Shoe that costs 18,000 Coin / 400 Shards. We can expect victory animations and more custom emotes to be available to buy as the store stock refreshes.
Crafting items
A tutorial pop up suggests that crafting items will be available to purchase from the store at some point.
Coin and Shards
You earn Coin by completing in-game challenges (we'll have a comprehensive guide on how to earn Coin quickly once we've poured a few hours into the game). Shards must be purchased with real money through the Origin store. Here are the current prices as of launch.
500 Shards: $4.99/£3.99
1050 Shards: $9.99/£7.99
2200 Shards: $19.99/£15.99
4600 Shards: $39.99/£31.99
As usual with premium currencies, you get a discount for buying in bulk, and the awkward exchange rate obfuscates the actual cost of the item you're purchasing. At these prices an armor pack is roughly $8, extrapolating from the 1050 Shard package. Naturally you will have a couple of hundred Shards left over after that purchase, but not quite enough to buy anything, which is another annoying practice that you commonly see in the sale of premium currencies.
We need to play more to see what the crafting microtransactions are like, but we'll update this post with the values as soon as we know.
