How to get Anthem multi-kills and finish the Trial of Cariff tomb challenge
Tick off Anthem multi-kills and move on with your life
As you progress your way through the main story, at some point you'll come across an Anthem multi-kills challenge, which you need to complete as part of the Anthem Tomb challenges. When the game first launched this challenge was a real pain to clear, and although there have been subsequent patches released to improve the situation you'll probably still want help - not only because Anthem is generally pretty bad at explaining how things work, but also because it handles multi-kills in a different way to most games. To that end, we've made this guide for how to get Anthem multi-kills, so you can get past that section of the game as efficiently as possible.
What is an Anthem multi-kill?
As explained by technical design director Brenon Holmes on reddit an Anthem multi-kill is “eight kills with a 10 second timeout between each (which resets every time you get a kill)”. So it’s not how many people you kill in one go, it’s how many you kill in a set time period. A better way to describe it would be a chain kill - eight kills, one after the other as soon as you can.
Can I use anything for a multi-kill and do ultimates count?
Technically, yes. Design director Brenon Holmes said in the reddit thread that “it should not matter, you should be able to use whatever you want” when asked how to get the kills - weapons, ultimates, melee etc. However, to be safe if you’re trying to get the Trial of Cariff done stick to melee, weapons, and specials as these are the ones we can definitely vouch for with that. A lot of people seem to have had trouble getting multi-kills to count towards challenges with ultimate attacks (I’ve certainly spend an evening incinerating hordes and failed with that approach).
Best stick to the freeplay areas for Anthem multi-kills for the tomb challenge
Here’s an interesting twist to all the multi-kill fun in Anthem. If you’re after the kills for the Cariff tomb challenge it looks like only the main freeplay area counts. Possibly. Basically it’s a bit of a mess. The ‘multi-kill’ message pops whenever you achieve the required kill count but some people are reporting only completing the Cariff challenge in the main freeplay area. Until BioWare clarify what exactly is going on it might be best to play it safe if you’re having trouble and stick to the area the challenge is associated with.
What is the best way to get multi-kills in Anthem?
Given that Anthem multi-kills are all about racking up a number of kills in a period of time you want a lot of enemies close together and your best setup for doing high damage quickly. Taking on groups solo can obviously help you get more kills, although because you can’t actually freeplay privately you’ll have to just run away from your group to get some space. A good place to aim for lots of things to kill is the Scar Foothold between Academy Ruins and Great Falls canyon on the map, but anywhere with lots of low level enemies will help. As for getting eight kills as fast as possible you’ll need whatever gear or Javelin you have that you feel the most comfortable doing that with, but here are a few pointers:
- Find mobs or large groups. Seeing as how it’s about killing a lot quickly you want to either be able to move between enemies fast, or hit several at once.
- Set things to easy. You need to kill things fast so make that easier.
- Just use guns, especially for Ranger. A lot of people are reporting success just using normal weapons, especially machine pistols with high fire rates. You want something that can mow down enemies like long grass - just get in the crowd and start cutting them down. Headshots can help with speed as well.
- Interceptor melee attacks work well. This seems to be a popular choice for a lot people having trouble. Again, it’s a case of getting in the thick of a mob and hacking away.
- The Storm’s AoE attacks can do the trick. Using the Storm’s area of attack specials seems to work well as long as you use things that actual kill, so avoid ice attacks. The Living Flame is helpful as it will hit multiple enemies, combine it with other explosive/fire attacks and keep shooting for extra kills.
- The Colossus’ high damage output is a good choice. Just go for options that work a crowd over; anything explosive or with an area of affect. The Colossus melee and jump/melee slam is also quite successful’.
- Swap gear or Javelins if you’re having trouble. You remember that thing about ‘the definition of madness’? If nothing’s working try something else.
- Restart the game if things feel screwy. There’s been a few reports of the game not tracking challenges properly, only for a quick restart to suddenly make kills count. If you’ve been trying all night this couldn’t hurt, and you probably need the break.
Basically, like a lot of Anthem, the multi-kill challenges are a bit of a mess but don't give up
A quick look at forums and discords shows that while there’s a consensus for success - no alts, freeplay only, being two of the strongest things people recommend - it’s all a bit up in the air. Some people swear they’ve dropped a couple of alts in a Stronghold and got all the multi kills they need in seconds. Some have been doing that for days and got nowhere. The only official word from Bioware has basically been ‘eight kills in 10 seconds’ so focus on that and if it isn’t working try something new.
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I'm GamesRadar's Managing Editor for guides, which means I run GamesRadar's guides and tips content. I also write reviews, previews and features, largely about horror, action adventure, FPS and open world games. I previously worked on Kotaku, and the Official PlayStation Magazine and website.