There is currently a lot of excitement about Anthem following an insider report. However, it doesn’t paint everything black regarding the future of Anthem. There are three glimmers of hope.
This is the insider report: This week, the US site Kotaku published an insider report on the development of the online RPG Anthem. The author of the report claims to have spoken with 19 sources, who wish to remain anonymous.
The report painted a grim picture of a game that was created without vision and leadership. For five years, from 2012 to 2017, hardly any decisions were made or progress achieved.
Moreover, the development of Anthem was so stressful that it drove developers into sick leave and away from BioWare.
We have already discussed the report on MeinMMO.
However, the long report also highlights some positive developments that occurred mainly towards the end of the development period. We want to focus on those in this article.
1. Leadership personnel exchanged and it works
One of Anthem’s main problems was that BioWare head Casey Hudson left in August 2014. He was the captain of BioWare’s A-Team, which had already led the development of the original Mass Effect series.
Casey was replaced by Jon Warner as Game Director. In the following three years, there was a dark phase in which few decisions were made, and the game stagnated.
According to the report, this changed in October 2017. A new strong figure, Mark Darrah, was brought into Anthem – and Casey Hudson returned.
Darrah came off well in the insider report. He is said to have injected momentum into the development and ensured that decisions were made and progress was achieved.
He supposedly told people: “Finish what you started.”
With Darrah, a new wave of energy reportedly entered the team starting in October 2017. Remarkable progress was made.
Kotaku highlights that Darrah was credited first in the closing credits, even though he had only been with Anthem for a year and a half.
2. New team with live experience takes over
It is also interesting that the further development of Anthem is shifting from Edmonton to the team in Austin. This was supposedly the plan from the start, according to the insider report.
The team in Austin seems motivated to pull the “Anthem” cart out of the mud.
BioWare Austin is the part of BioWare that has been working on the MMORPG Star Wars The Old Republic for years.
In Austin, there was a feeling that they regularly gave feedback to the leadership in Edmonton during development, but they felt ignored.
They had gained so much experience with Star Wars The Old Republic and felt capable of providing valuable insights into how things work in a live game and how they do not.
Now the team in Austin feels they finally have control over Anthem. A developer from there is quoted as saying:
“Over the years, we’ve felt like: Okay, when we’re at the wheel, we’ll fix it. Sure, the game has these issues, and we understand them. But there is a: ‘We want to fix it’ mentality.”
3. There was a sprint towards the end and much improved
The insider report highlights how much BioWare accomplished in a short time once the vision was clear, and they could work towards solid goals.
One developer expressed being impressed by what was still possible in the last 6 to 9 months.
Another developer is quoted saying that the improvements exploded in the last months of development.
It is said that under Darrah, the team gained real momentum and the atmosphere changed. The problem was that time was short. In the end, the team needed a few more months.
This is why the controversial grind mission was still added, to extend game time.
But overall, many of the “good things” in Anthem were created only in the last months when real decisions were finally being made.
Here, optimism spread as the combat and flying felt so good.
Additionally, there is now a feeling that they can really do much better with Anthem as a live game.
Conclusion: Many of Anthem’s biggest problems seem to lie in the period between 2014 and 2017 and have now been resolved:
- the leadership vacuum has been filled
- a team with new energy is at the helm
- the lethargy and working aimlessly appear to be gone
From these problems, the “stress” and “crunch” issues that are now widely discussed seem to have resulted. Because BioWare had to make up for in 18 months what had been missed over 5 years.
Perhaps BioWare’s leadership has indeed learned as much in the recent months as they have articulated in a blog post.
This would mean that a majority of the criticism from the insider report relates to issues that have now been addressed and resolved.
