If you’ve played the Anthem demo and completed a mission, chances are you might have seen an Alliance bonus when it comes to XP. Now if you’re not familiar to what it is, and what constituted the bonus, here’s the official explanation.

BioWare Producer Ben Irving posted a message on Reddit announcing that Anthem guilds won’t be available at launch, and what the Anthem Alliance system is, and how it works.

The Alliance System – “What is That & How Does it Work?”

The Alliance system is a way for you and your friends to be rewarded for playing the game. Anytime you complete an expedition (Mission, Contract, Freeplay, Stronghold) you earn experience. That experience also goes into the Alliance system. Even better, the experience from the OTHER people in your group also goes into the alliance system. Even better STILL, players on your friends list who play without you – THEIR experience also goes into the Alliance System.

At the end of every week, you are awarded Coin (our in-game earned currency, used to purchase various items throughout the game) based on how much experience was contributed to the Alliance System. There are several tiers you can work through each week as well as a weekly cap. We want to encourage players to form friendships and play together and we’ve created the Alliance System to do just that!

Guilds – “What About Those?”

The short answer is, Guilds will not be available at launch. While we believe the Alliance System is a great way to encourage social interaction with Anthem, we also understand Guilds play a critical role in helping players form organized groups with people of similar interests and play styles. Our goal is to release guilds as soon after launch as we can. Details on timing will come as soon as we have our plan locked in. We want this to be awesome.

In other Anthem news, make sure to check out how combos work in the game via this handy cheat sheet graphic. BioWare has also cleared the air when it comes to Anthem microtransactions, which you should read about here.