A former executive at BioWare talks about Anthem and explains why some of the major criticisms are justified.
Who is speaking? Mark Darrah was a developer at BioWare for 23 years and served as an Executive Producer. He was involved in key roles in Dragon Age 2, Dragon Age: Inquisition, and Anthem, where he oversaw the development process.
Darrah left BioWare in 2021 and shares his experiences at the studio in videos on YouTube. In a recent video series, he explains what exactly happened during the development of Anthem.
Lead developer finds criticism of Anthem justified
What does Darrah say about the criticism of Anthem? In his new YouTube video, Darrah discusses the launch of Anthem. The game launched with a Metacritic score of 59, which was significantly worse than the internally expected score of 70.
Darrah points out that many criticized the received loot and the activities of the shooter as being too repetitive and perceived the story as incoherent. Darrah himself feels the criticism is justified but adds that this is due to the genre and structure of the game:
I largely agree with this feedback. These are legitimate weaknesses of the game. In a looter-shooter, where you play the same missions repeatedly to gather gear, the quality of that gear and the variety of missions are critical factors.
Things like the story don’t play such a large role in a looter-shooter since you typically fight through the story and then end up in a repetitive grind for gear. But if you feel like you’re doing the same thing in combat, if you feel like the grind for gear isn’t worth it, if you feel like the endgame is lacking or incomplete, then the entire gaming experience collapses.
Darrah goes on to say that the balance, loot design, and activities are not really worse than in other BioWare games. However, since it is a loot shooter, it is judged in a different context.
- “In Mass Effect or Dragon Age, combat is intended to be fun, but it should be enjoyable within the framework of that overarching story. It is not expected that you would play the same mission over and over again. Therefore, it doesn’t matter as much if a mission feels somewhat incoherent or repetitive, as long as you only play it once or twice before moving on and continuing the story development. However, that is not the case with Anthem. Most missions are played multiple times.”
Overall, Darrah is convinced that the narrative in Anthem is worse than in earlier BioWare games. The developer concludes: “The game doesn’t really understand how to effectively tell a story in its medium.”
If you want to know what Mark Darrah has previously said about Anthem and the development of the looter-shooter, check it out here:
During the video, Darrah advises to test Anthem again if you only played the looter-shooter at release. The game has improved since launch.
If you want to try Anthem, you need to hurry. Electronic Arts announced on July 4, 2025, that they will shut down Anthem on January 12, 2026. Until then, you can still play Anthem, but from the cut-off date, the shooter will no longer be playable, as it was developed as a purely online game: EA wanted to create the perfect MMO with Anthem, but instead of salvation, it’s now the death blow
