Let's not beat around the bush: BioWare's been trying to navigate an increasingly slippery slope for a good few years now. Once one of the very best role-playing game studios in the world, the Canadian company has had it rough in recent times, with the likes of Mass Effect: Andromeda failing to propel the beloved sci-fi series into a new generation.
But while Andromeda floundered, much of BioWare was busy behind the scenes working on ANTHEM. The project was officially unveiled at E3 2017, but we've heard very little since. Publisher EA had said that it was due to release later this year, but according to a new Kotaku report, the supposedly ambitious game has apparently been pushed back into a vague "early 2019".
The report details the "pressure" that the developer currently faces as it continues to craft its next title. The studio's putting the majority of its personnel on the upcoming project, going as far as to reassign senior members of the Dragon Age team.
Kotaku's article goes in-depth on the current climate that BioWare finds itself in -- a climate that has hardcore gamers lashing out at loot boxes and anti-consumer game design mandated by big publishers like Activision and EA. Will a title like ANTHEM even be welcomed by the current market, or would it be torn to bits? It's easy to see why BioWare must be feeling the heat.
All of this screams one thing to us: ANTHEM may well be BioWare's make or break moment. Many would argue that BioWare's been on the cusp of imploding since the debacle surrounding the ending of Mass Effect 3 -- some might even say that the developer's days have been numbered ever since it signed up with EA.
That's a gloomy way to look at things, though. ANTHEM could end up being a great game, and we sincerely hope that it will be. But what do you think? Will BioWare deliver with ANTHEM, or do you have your doubts? Keep your fingers crossed in the comments section below.
[source kotaku.co.uk]
Comments 36
I don't think there's any buzz at all for this, it's already been compared to Destiny (not a good comparison with each passing day) the failure of ME:A and EA's tendency to cripple it's games with MTX just doesn't give much people hope.
This is 100% make or break time for BioWare. There might not even be a BioWare anymore if Anthem fails.
My favorite series in gaming died so that Anthem could have the "A" team working on it so it better be good...
I think the potential is there for a great game but we will see I guess.
It's probably gonna be filled with loot boxes and micro-transactions anyway, no matter how good the game itself is.
Unless EA stops being greedy, I'm not buying this game no matter how high the quality of the game is. Their business practices can go die in a fire, and so can the company itself.
This doesn't seem like a good situation to be in to be honest. That said, when the marketing machine kicks in for this one, it's REALLY going to kick in.
FAKE EDIT: Absolutely agree that it will be stuffed to the gills with microtransactions and stuff if EA think they can get away with it. I imagine a lot is being re-tooled after Battlefront.
We'll see. I feel like this is just EA trying to create their own Destiny, and I wouldn't be surprised if ended up as another Destiny 2 knowing EA's track record.
Unless it’s micro transaction free and is actually fun, unlike most online only games, I’m not buying. I wish EA would cease to exist.
After Andromeda, yeah I hope that it breaks.
The part where Jason writes that they rebooted the new Dragon Age to insert more "live elements" kinda makes my stomach churn
Sorry to say but i think this will not go well. Even with the delay EA want this out before the fiscal year so theres still going to be a rushed element to it. Also bioware could create a great game but as soon as ea put in loot crates its all over. Theres no disney to step in this time to tell them to stop and despite backlash they will make money regardless. Honestly bioware and ghost are probably going to fold because of ea greed and god help respawn.
@KirbyTheVampire just do what I did with BF2. Buy it preowned and never spend a penny on MTX. I quite like Battlefront 2 now. It's like I've swindled EA.
I’ll only be interested if it includes the things I used to love BioWare games for. That is, a compelling single player story driven game with interesting characters. If it is something like Destiny, I’ll skip it.
Hopefully this has a plethora of microtransactions and loot boxes ranging upto hundreds of pounds. I wish we could have had a new Dragon Age, when they saw Scalebound cancelled, nevermind.
Also @Cheski completely agree
ANTHEM is to Destiny as ... Lawbreakers is to Overwatch. Expect it to fail accordingly.
@Th3solution true but bioware cane make great games given freedom enough, it doesn't seem likely they'll have that freedom though, focus will be on loot boxes guff instead of lore, narative and characters.
Down with EA! Greedy company, they don't care about what the fans want, they just care about pleasing share holders and sucking the money out of our pockets. Let's not give it to them, i'll take my money and valuable time elsewhere.
@Johnnycide lol very nice
@Bad-MuthaAdebisi Very true.
And actually, I jest a little at the whole thing failing. I was at the game store a couple weeks ago browsing and these two guys in there were talking to each other about ANTHEM and they were sooo excited about it. They were using all kind of superlatives about how it looked and what they’d seen of it. I just thought to myself, I’m a pretty informed gamer and I have heard no buzz about this. Are these guys smoking something? Why aren’t they excited about Shadow of the Colossus or Yakuza 6? But it just goes to show, there’s no predicting what the masses who play these multiplayer, loot box ridden, highway robbery, service games will do.
Bioware needs a hit, no doubt about it. Unfortunately I'm less than confident, especially after the Mass Effect: Andromeda debacle. People can say what they want about MS but when Bioware was working with them things were much better. As soon as the company sold out to EA I knew it was just a matter of time before it all went to sh*t. It's also why I'm not too confident about Respawn's future. It amazes me that studios still sign up to work with the likes of EA after everything we've seen over the years. Even Activision, SquareEnix and Ubisoft, all of which have their flaws, aren't nearly as bad.
im quite looking forward to anthem,it looks great .as for mtx...we shall have to see...but the thing is..no one has to pay for mtx stuff so its not a problem for me per se..
as a side note perhaps the reason for the delay in release is due to them re thinking the game structure due to the ea backlash as they have a lot riding on this being a good seller..
Its EA so its break.
@Bad-MuthaAdebisi I think Bioware and Sony would be a nice mix.
The only sliver of thread of hope I have for this is that Drew Karpyshyn is writing it.
I feel like ANTHEM will be the biggest chance to send publishers and developers a clear message about loot boxes and microtransactions and "games as a service" because it's a new IP from a high-profile studio. For all the controversy, Star Wars: Battlefront II still sold like hot cakes because Star Wars + Christmas = profit. EA can shrug all the criticism off if they're still making money.
Problem is, knowing EA, anything less than three months of chart-topping and a 90 on Metacritic will mean BioWare is shut down and picked over for spare parts, or downsized to make mobile phone games or something. So much of the gaming media presents the plight of the overworked, underpaid developer nowadays and we know that these terrible design decisions aren't theirs, but rather orders from on high, and that makes me feel awful for them when they become victims of the corporate system. They become synonymous with the controversy and the failure.
I'm sure ANTHEM has some decent, worthwhile stuff to do in it somewhere, but it feels like it's been created by BioWare because they're being held hostage by EA. The gun's to their head and they're pleading "Okay, what about this? Please don't kill us, this is what you want!"
Problem is, if we don't buy it and play it and overspend on in-game content, EA are gonna pull the trigger. That's on us.
Long story short? EA make me feel truly awful about gaming sometimes.
This game is going to sell on marketing alone.
It will have microtransactions, multiple season passes, shady business practices and none of it will matter.
It's basically going to be the Destiny launch all over again.
This really is quite a pivotal moment in game design. It has been pretty clear that EA want their own Destiny. Don't forget, this is supposed to be the 'Bob Dylan' of games. Games as a service are going through a watershed moment where sucess isn't based on just unit sales but on ongoing support and player count/expenditure.
What EA don't seem to realise is that the games as a service that truly prosper are those that generate goodwill from gamers, where the relationship is non exploitative.
Anthem looked to me, just utterly generic. You could have told me it was a trailer from any number of games and I would have believed it. For me, I find it hard to reconcile the type of games that Bioware make with a games as a service model. We'll see but without a doubt, if it doesn't succeed in line with EA's investment, this studio is doomed.
@RogerRoger If it makes you feel any better, the Battlefront II sales were only around 40% of what the first game sold. Which is impressive, as it means that millions of people refrained from buying it. Whilst it still sold millions, they took a very big hit.
This is basically the polar opposite of the type of game that I want from them so perhaps there's a little personal bias swaying how I feel about it, but I think that Anthem has trainwreck written all over it.
I'm expecting it to launch buggy and half-baked - but I'm sure they'll manage to get the loot boxes and micro-transactions up and running - and people will revolt. I'd like to be wrong because I enjoy(ed) Bioware's work, but in the current gaming climate, and with EA being involved, I'm just expecting the worst.
I hope that Bioware don't get swallowed up and destroyed but it's looking more than likely because of the likes with Mass Effect Andromeda failing like it did. Dragon Age Inquisition didn't do very well as I have it and it's kinda of dull at the moment where I am. Anthem will be full of loot boxes and MTs at some point just like Ghost Recon Wildlands it may not be at launch but you can bet it will be at some point. And that will destroy this game straight away look at Destiny 2 ??? That's the problem with EA make money at launch and don't care how it goes because they know this game is already going to fail. Oh and the base game will have **** all in it at launch like Destiny 2 because want a Destiny clone and this will be it.
Disney should have just given bioware the rights to make Kotor 3. Would have helped Disney's star wars reputation and as long as EA wasn't involved I'm sure sales would have been through the roof. I hate how some of my favourite developers have been swallowed up by bigger greedier developers and now they just aren't as good. Or possibly aren't allowed to be as good!
Anthem has the potential to be a fantastic game but like Destiny and the Division, there are questions about the state of the game at launch - both of those titles launched to very mixed opinions and took years to reach their 'best'. Destiny 2 then went and undid everything that Destiny had put right...
Then of course there is EA and the way they have published games of late. Pushing out games to hit a fiscal year in a 'mess' (Mass Effect:Andromeda), launching games ruined by Micro-transactions (Battlefront 2, NFS) and cancelling/closing down studio's focused on Single Player experiences (Visceral/Star Wars)
Not only is that affecting us gamers, the hate towards EA and fear that a loot based game will be stuffed full of micro-transactions, may even be 'rushed' out to hit before the end of March 2019! The devs are feeling that pressure too by association. People who were interested are now dropping away - not even prepared to give them a chance because of 'EA'. The feeling of 'damned before even being guilty (or not)'
Much as I despise what EA have done in the past year, I am not prepared to condemn a game before its released. Anthem was a 'stand-out' game for me at E3 2017 and whilst I am a little more sceptical now, I am still giving them the benefit of doubt and that maybe, just maybe EA cannot afford to make the same mistakes with this...
Time will tell of course but it still remains on my wanted list - for now!
I have no idea? I would say that if it is good then that's a good thing, If, however, it is another game filled with micro-transactions and loot boxes, then I hope it gets boycotted and fails dismally; they need to learn that gamers don't want it; and the especially don't want gambling mechanics in games aimed at kids.
I think I'm going to assume it's not going to be worth my time because EA are calling the shots here and they've made it very clear their only real priority now is money. And that sort of mentality rarely makes for a great experience.
But happy to be proven wrong, maybe the legendary Bioware can do what all the other companies EA bought and killed off couldn't. Good luck to them.
People started hating BioWare when Mass Effect 3 came out, and the I-hate-Andromeda bandwagon was in full motion before the game was even released. People were going to hate the game - and BioWare - regardless of what it turned out to be.
It's very difficult for a company to regain it's foothold in the wake of these I-hate-X bandwagons. A bad reputation lasts much longer than a good one. Regardless of what game BioWare makes in the future, it will take years for the wagon to stop rolling.
The success of Anthem will not depend on the actual game at this point, but whatever mood the big mainstream and the chief gaming journalists happen to be in at the time of release.
@Bonbonetti The only thing worse than pre-judging something that isn't even finished yet is pre-judging it on the basis of flawed data. Bandwagons are bad enough, but a misguided or misinformed bandwagon...?
EA demanded that Mass Effect 3 have a "definitive" ending and then rushed the release schedule, creating a perfect storm of conflicting orders that forced BioWare to tack on a quick, dirty conclusion to an otherwise-outstanding narrative. I was lucky to play Mass Effect 3 for the first time years after launch, and therefore it's my favourite of the franchise, because the Extended Cut and Citadel DLC content made it so, so much better and proved that BioWare could write their way out of the corner EA had shoved them in... but, having looked up the original ending online and spoken to friends who played it at launch, I would have been equally furious with the ending, sure. And it was EA's fault for the rushed schedule.
Same with Andromeda. True, BioWare spent a lot of time early on exploring procedurally-generated planets and star systems, something that didn't pan out and it cost them time and money. But, after refining everything and creating the basis for a solid franchise reboot, EA saw the state Andromeda was in, saw it clearly needed more time, had BioWare pleading for more time... and EA pushed it out anyway, seeking to get the launch revenue within their financial year.
The first Mass Effect had a fairly simple "intergalactic chase movie" storyline and characters that fit. It was the sequel which built on that beginning and made them legendary. Andromeda's storyline and characters had some amazing potential but, thanks to EA's meddling and bean-counting, we didn't even get the planned story DLC, let alone a sequel. I'm certain BioWare would have taken promising folk like Vetra, Kallo and Reyes and made one heck of a follow-up.
You're absolutely right; the bandwagon will decide ANTHEM's fate. I only hope it isn't the wrong-footed "I Hate BioWare" bandwagon calling the shots, but rather the "I Hate EA" bandwagon. At least then, despite personally loathing mob mentality, all the anger will be pointed in the right direction.
What's the EA death count up to now?
Fun fact: Many moons ago I worked for a small mobile game company. EA bought them JUST before I got hired, but nothing changed for a good six months.
Then one day we were told that A) we're moving to the EA campus, and B) not all of us were moving to the EA campus. We lost some of the team.
Once at the campus we received a cold shoulder from the management and even from other EA employees. Total black sheep status. Perks and benefits awarded to "regular" EA employees were not extended to us. They wouldn't talk to us in the cafeteria. Things like that.
Instead of the methods we were using (which worked) we were given a multitude of checklists to complete each day. We now felt like factory workers. They made the management structure within our team incredibly convoluted, and we now had to answer to several people over on "EA prime" as some of us started calling it. Okay... as I started calling it. We couldn't get anything done as it required approval from Frank, and he was out for the next two weeks. Or we were waiting on Paul but he wasn't getting back to us.
We used Jira to track our bugs, and one day we started noticing that people with Indian-sounding names were in there, entering test bugs. We were informed that in order to speed things up they were hiring people in India to help us. You can see where this is heading.
They had us training these people, who barely spoke the language and, being honest, were terrible at the job. Then they layoffs began. Our team, once about fifty or sixty strong, was down to a dozen or so. It was at this point that I left before I got the ax as well.
I'm not a fan of EA.
@glassmusic Woah. Dude, that sucks. In fairness, I suppose a similar story could be told in just about any industry with large corporate take over of a small business, but your experience certainly doesn’t make EA look very good. The greed and disconnect from the basic day-to-day employee and, by extension, with the actual development of a quality product, denotes very poor management. Hopefully you found a better company to work for. Thanks for sharing!
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