An insider report has been published about the creation of the online shooter Anthem , citing 19 sources who worked on Anthem. The report paints a grim picture of the online RPG and its development history. Anthem was reportedly hastily cobbled together in a final sprint.
Where did the information come from? The lengthy report was published on the US site Kotaku . Journalist Jason Schreier claims to have spoken with current or former employees of BioWare or people otherwise involved in the project. He reportedly conducted interviews with 19 people. However, all of them remain anonymous because they were not authorized to talk about the creation of Anthem.
According to Schreier, EA and BioWare refused to comment on the story.
However, Schreier is known for having sources in gaming studios and for being able to tap into them.
18 months in development instead of 7 years
This is the core statement: In the insider report, Schreier cites sources claiming that the actual “production” work on Anthem only began in October 2017. That is about 18 months before the release in February 2019.
Therefore, the game feels so unpolished. There wasn’t enough time left to test the game.
BioWare stated that they had been working on the universe of Anthem since 2012 – according to the reports that Schreier analyzed, this was true. However, almost nothing came of it in the first five years.
Many overtime hours, few decisions, and no vision
What went wrong beforehand? Countless reasons are cited regarding BioWare’s problems in the months and years leading up to the release:
- The studio was exhausted from hard productions – BioWare had always worked in a way that little happened for years, culminating in a panicked sprint at the end. Even with Dragon Age: Inquisition (2014), the crunch was brutal.
- Since the title was such a success, this led to even more problems: BioWare continued to rely on hard overtime because they trusted the “BioWare” magic. But that only kicked in at the end: The game comes together in “crunch time” and is fantastic, even if it looked terrible before.
- Many employees left the studio during development or became sick from the stress. They would then be out for months.
- In August 2014, the head, Casey Hudson, left. The entire team was reliant on him to set the direction. He was like Captain Picard on the Enterprise: The rest of the team would follow his orders.
No one wanted to make decisions without Hudson
- No one wanted to make decisions. This paralyzed the team. The new leadership team appeared divided. Many unproductive meetings were held.
- The original vision of a game more focused on “survival in a foreign world” was gradually diluted.
- Ultimately, there was no longer a vision for Anthem.
- The team desperately wanted to create something new and different from Dragon Age. The team resisted suggestions for an epic story because it was “too Dragon Age”. The Dragon Age writer, David Gaider, then left. He wanted a typical BioWare story.
- Mass Effect: Andromeda also diverted the BioWare leadership’s attention from Anthem for a while – as the release date approached, the project was in a crisis situation.
Stress with EA CEO and the Frostbite engine
- EA CEO Patrick Söderlund played the Christmas demo of Anthem in 2016 and completely tore it apart. This was not the game he was promised. The graphics were especially disappointing. Söderlund summoned the BioWare leadership team to Stockholm to seek help from DICE.
- New concepts were needed – there was apparently a lot of pressure, and the team worked for 6 weeks on a private demo to convince Söderlund. Only here did they reintroduce flying and focused primarily on making Anthem look great.
- The Frostbite engine was overall terrible and consumed an enormous amount of time – there was even a “strike team” from the Battlefield developers DICE to help.
- Additionally, at BioWare, they were not allowed to mention Destiny and therefore could not learn from Bungie’s mistakes. At BioWare, it was even taboo to mention the word Destiny.
- Internally, there were also problems because technicians with Frostbite experience were pulled from EA to work on the cash cow FIFA instead of Anthem – the frosty Edmonton as a studio location made it difficult to hire good programmers.
BioWare purportedly could no longer postpone the launch of Anthem because the release had to occur within Electronic Arts’ fiscal year, which ended in March.
According to a developer, it felt like Anthem was essentially created in the last 6 to 9 months. There was nothing before that, it couldn’t be played.
The complete article from Kotaku with many details can be found here in English (via Kotaku).
What’s next: There is also a glimmer of hope in the insider report. The people who are now working on Anthem feel they can repair it.
If players could just be patient, Anthem could turn a corner like many service games before, such as Diablo 3 or Destiny.
BioWare finds the focus of the insider report on Anthem unfair
How BioWare responds: BioWare eventually wrote and published a blog post (via Blog.Bioware).
It states that they stand behind every current and former employee who worked on Anthem. They have chosen not to comment on the story because they see an unfair focus on certain team members and leaders who have done their best.
They do not believe that such articles contribute to improving the gaming industry and the craft of making games. BioWare sees no value in tearing each other or others’ work down.
Creating something new is always the hardest task. They hear the criticism. They have already improved the studio culture and invested a lot in planning to avoid crunch.
Currently, the full focus of the team is on the players and making Anthem all that it should be for the community.
