https://www.pcgamer.com/anthems-original-story-sounded-amazing-and-much-more-interesting/

Unfortunately for EA and BioWare, Anthem has taken a real kicking since it launched at the end of February. Criticism over its plot, structure, and mission design arguably isn't the worst of it, though—the kicker is how much better the original story might have been. 

As revealed in The Art of Anthem, the game’s premise was very different once upon a time. Early drafts featured a colony ship from Earth that had crash-landed in what was essentially the ‘Bermuda Triangle’ of space. “Survivors would have to settle, survive, and somehow thrive on a harsh and dangerous world,” writes the game’s art director, Derek Watts. “These ships were only in that first iteration. We took this quite far along before we switched to what Anthem would eventually become.” You can see it for yourself via a sample on Google’s online store.