BioWare's new IP: Anthem

vegeta535 said:
That's the problem. Companies get too greedy and fail on the execution. By either filling it up with full retard MT or releasing it before it is ready. They market some of these games as the next big thing but you can tell they put a half ass effort into it.
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It's not as simple as low effort. Anthem was built (supposedly) in less than 18 months just like Andromeda was. That's not low effort, that's a project that was mismanaged during its five years of development. Unfortunately, management has a direct impact on the quality of these games. EA putting pressure on BioWare to create a Destiny 2 / clone killer had to be immense. So while the end product seems low effort, that's not an accurate description of what went wrong behind the scenes. Cyberpunk 2077 isn't a live service game, but its clear the game isn't a low effort title. There is incredible detail in the stories and in the environment. The issue there is the game is unfinished.
 
The biggest disappointment of Anthem/Andromeda was knowing had they just spent the time/resources on only one, that one likely would have been a better game. People blame EA for this, but this is 100% Bioware's fault for taking too much on.
 
Dan_D said:
It's not as simple as low effort. Anthem was built (supposedly) in less than 18 months just like Andromeda was. That's not low effort, that's a project that was mismanaged during its five years of development. Unfortunately, management has a direct impact on the quality of these games. EA putting pressure on BioWare to create a Destiny 2 / clone killer had to be immense. So while the end product seems low effort, that's not an accurate description of what went wrong behind the scenes. Cyberpunk 2077 isn't a live service game, but its clear the game isn't a low effort title. There is incredible detail in the stories and in the environment. The issue there is the game is unfinished.
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I agree, Anthem was not a low effort title, its marred by bad design decisions and poor management. The world is expansive, pretty, and well animated. The basic gameplay is both amazing and bland in different ways, the powers, flight, and speed of combat is amazing, the weapons and lack of flight options during combat make it a bland and generic TPS.

Clearly they needed better focus and decision making.

Cyberpunk is being shit on hard by the haterwagon, but the reality is its an impressive technical marvel with solid bones that was rushed out a litte eary. Still it can be fixed and it isn't near as egregious as many make out (console launch aside). It is an incomplete game but not half a game crammed full of monitized garbage like many titles these days.

Mchart said:
The biggest disappointment of Anthem/Andromeda was knowing had they just spent the time/resources on only one, that one likely would have been a better game. People blame EA for this, but this is 100% Bioware's fault for taking too much on.
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No, Andromeda is firmly EA's fault for not providing ample budget to develope a new title to launch a new trillogy. hell they only gave bioware enough funds for two new alien races, orders to be cosplay friendly, and not enough money to bring all the original races back.

Also no, Anthem was firmly EA's fault for pushing both the unfamilir Dice engine and the unfamiliar multiplayer/mmo/live service segement onto bioware.

Yea Bioware made mistakes, but EA did the typical big business with no understanding of product, designer, or market decision. Hey we want a new franchise set in your universe but on a half assed budget, with a weird focus on cosplay because influencers are hot right now(sure its cool, but 99.9% of the gamer base won't be doing anything more than a simple holloween costume if that). BTW we also want you to use engines you don't know, and design a game you don't have any experience designing.
 
Dan_D said:
It's not as simple as low effort. Anthem was built (supposedly) in less than 18 months just like Andromeda was. That's not low effort, that's a project that was mismanaged during its five years of development. Unfortunately, management has a direct impact on the quality of these games. EA putting pressure on BioWare to create a Destiny 2 / clone killer had to be immense. So while the end product seems low effort, that's not an accurate description of what went wrong behind the scenes. Cyberpunk 2077 isn't a live service game, but its clear the game isn't a low effort title. There is incredible detail in the stories and in the environment. The issue there is the game is unfinished.
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Sure not low effort. It was still rushed out when they damn well know it wasn't ready. They thought people would accept it cause of live services. That they will add and fix it in the future.
 
Anthem kills me, it had the bones of an amazing game, flight and combat felt amazing to me but it lacked so much content that there was no meat for the bones. I really hope they turn the game around as I had so much fun flying and fighting that i would happily give it another chance.
 
Ragenrok said:
Anthem kills me, it had the bones of an amazing game, flight and combat felt amazing to me but it lacked so much content that there was no meat for the bones. I really hope they turn the game around as I had so much fun flying and fighting that i would happily give it another chance.
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Same. I hope EA lets BioWare continue with the changes. I would absolutely jump back in the game if they do. EA just needs to allocate a marketing budget for it to bring people back to the game when it is ready.
 
Ragenrok said:
Anthem kills me, it had the bones of an amazing game, flight and combat felt amazing to me but it lacked so much content that there was no meat for the bones. I really hope they turn the game around as I had so much fun flying and fighting that i would happily give it another chance.
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If they could make it so you could fight while in flight, do away with the flight limit, correct the loot tables and weapon balance (they may have already), then just add content I'd be sold.
 
Aireoth said:
No, Andromeda is firmly EA's fault for not providing ample budget to develope a new title to launch a new trillogy. hell they only gave bioware enough funds for two new alien races, orders to be cosplay friendly, and not enough money to bring all the original races back.

Also no, Anthem was firmly EA's fault for pushing both the unfamilir Dice engine and the unfamiliar multiplayer/mmo/live service segement onto bioware.

Yea Bioware made mistakes, but EA did the typical big business with no understanding of product, designer, or market decision. Hey we want a new franchise set in your universe but on a half assed budget, with a weird focus on cosplay because influencers are hot right now(sure its cool, but 99.9% of the gamer base won't be doing anything more than a simple holloween costume if that). BTW we also want you to use engines you don't know, and design a game you don't have any experience designing.
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According to Aaryn Flynn, the former head of Bioware, EA never forced them to use Frostbite. Bioware management chose to use it themselves. Andromeda's development was a mess, handed off to a studio with inexperienced developers and not given proper support from Bioware management. Communication between studios was a problem. Bioware refused to hire people to replace those that left, leaving various departments understaffed. Multiple key members of the project quit the company during development. They waited until practically the last minute to remove ideas (like having 100s of explorable planets) that should have obviously been unworkable much earlier in development. Despite starting production in 2012, Bioware wasted most of that time and had to rush through development in around 18 months. After moving production back to Edmonton.

Anthem, on the other hand, seems like the only reason it even had it's single notable mechanic was due to EA telling Bioware to keep flying in the game. Bioware didn't even fully know what the game was going to be when they had that big E3 stage talk. That's why the discussion was full of vague promises and so much of it never came to fruition. Despite development starting following Mass Effect 3, the bulk of the game was done within the last year prior to release due to incompetent management. EA definitely has it's share of fault here, pulling experienced engine devs from Bioware to work on FIFA and likely demanding live-service crap, but the majority still falls on Bioware's bad leadership.
 
Bioware is already too divided. Part is working on Legendary edition, another on Anthem (I totally forgot this even existed), and DA4, ME"4". Why can't they just pool their resources and focus on one major title at a time?
To me it makes sense that they are shutting down anthem, it should've been done a year ago. I'm yet to see a live service online game turn itself around after a flop launch. These games only loose players base over time not gain, even if they fix the biggest issues. Sure you can prolong the death indefinitely but it's a complete waste of time and effort and only gives false hope to the actual players.
 
Derangel said:
According to Aaryn Flynn, the former head of Bioware, EA never forced them to use Frostbite. Bioware management chose to use it themselves. Andromeda's development was a mess, handed off to a studio with inexperienced developers and not given proper support from Bioware management. Communication between studios was a problem. Bioware refused to hire people to replace those that left, leaving various departments understaffed. Multiple key members of the project quit the company during development. They waited until practically the last minute to remove ideas (like having 100s of explorable planets) that should have obviously been unworkable much earlier in development. Despite starting production in 2012, Bioware wasted most of that time and had to rush through development in around 18 months. After moving production back to Edmonton.

Anthem, on the other hand, seems like the only reason it even had it's single notable mechanic was due to EA telling Bioware to keep flying in the game. Bioware didn't even fully know what the game was going to be when they had that big E3 stage talk. That's why the discussion was full of vague promises and so much of it never came to fruition. Despite development starting following Mass Effect 3, the bulk of the game was done within the last year prior to release due to incompetent management. EA definitely has it's share of fault here, pulling experienced engine devs from Bioware to work on FIFA and likely demanding live-service crap, but the majority still falls on Bioware's bad leadership.
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Well said and I couldn't agree more.
 
Derangel said:
According to Aaryn Flynn, the former head of Bioware, EA never forced them to use Frostbite. Bioware management chose to use it themselves. Andromeda's development was a mess, handed off to a studio with inexperienced developers and not given proper support from Bioware management. Communication between studios was a problem. Bioware refused to hire people to replace those that left, leaving various departments understaffed. Multiple key members of the project quit the company during development. They waited until practically the last minute to remove ideas (like having 100s of explorable planets) that should have obviously been unworkable much earlier in development. Despite starting production in 2012, Bioware wasted most of that time and had to rush through development in around 18 months. After moving production back to Edmonton.

Anthem, on the other hand, seems like the only reason it even had it's single notable mechanic was due to EA telling Bioware to keep flying in the game. Bioware didn't even fully know what the game was going to be when they had that big E3 stage talk. That's why the discussion was full of vague promises and so much of it never came to fruition. Despite development starting following Mass Effect 3, the bulk of the game was done within the last year prior to release due to incompetent management. EA definitely has it's share of fault here, pulling experienced engine devs from Bioware to work on FIFA and likely demanding live-service crap, but the majority still falls on Bioware's bad leadership.
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Fair enough, management is management their going to derp.
 
Ragenrok said:
Anthem kills me, it had the bones of an amazing game, flight and combat felt amazing to me but it lacked so much content that there was no meat for the bones. I really hope they turn the game around as I had so much fun flying and fighting that i would happily give it another chance.
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I really enjoyed Anthem as well...the basic framework for a great game was there...like you said the flying mechanics were best in class...the problem was you ran out of things to do really quick...combat was fun but after you finished the main story it was a very repetitive loop...graphics were also gorgeous...this game did not deserve to fail...BioWare should have polished the gameplay and added more content on a regular basis
 
M76 said:
Bioware is already too divided. Part is working on Legendary edition, another on Anthem (I totally forgot this even existed), and DA4, ME"4". Why can't they just pool their resources and focus on one major title at a time?
To me it makes sense that they are shutting down anthem, it should've been done a year ago. I'm yet to see a live service online game turn itself around after a flop launch. These games only loose players base over time not gain, even if they fix the biggest issues. Sure you can prolong the death indefinitely but it's a complete waste of time and effort and only gives false hope to the actual players.
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Bioware probably close to 1000 employees (they had around 800 as of 2010). If they had good management that knew what they were doing, those handful of projects wouldn't be a problem. Both the Anthem re-work and Legendary Edition teams are small. Mass Effect 4 is probably only in the early concept phase right now, nowhere near full production. A properly managed studio could handle all of this without a ton of issues. Unless Bioware fixed the issues that lead to Andromeda and Anthem being like they were, even if they were only working on one project it's not going to make much difference.
 
polonyc2 said:
I really enjoyed Anthem as well...the basic framework for a great game was there...like you said the flying mechanics were best in class...the problem was you ran out of things to do really quick...combat was fun but after you finished the main story it was a very repetitive loop...graphics were also gorgeous...this game did not deserve to fail...BioWare should have polished the gameplay and added more content on a regular basis
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I didn't like the combat. It felt slow and clunky, and I thought the guns were virtually useless. It forced you to use abilities a lot, and even those didn't impress me. Now, having said that I think the framework for something great was there, BioWare just didn't tune it very well. Also, it might be different at endgame, I don't know. I didn't give the game that much of a chance. It bored me quite honestly. I had access to it via EA Play and still couldn't be bothered with it. Had I paid full price for it, I'd have been pissed.
 
Dan_D said:
I didn't like the combat. It felt slow and clunky, and I thought the guns were virtually useless. It forced you to use abilities a lot, and even those didn't impress me. Now, having said that I think the framework for something great was there, BioWare just didn't tune it very well. Also, it might be different at endgame, I don't know. I didn't give the game that much of a chance. It bored me quite honestly. I had access to it via EA Play and still couldn't be bothered with it. Had I paid full price for it, I'd have been pissed.
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I loved the abilities...way more fun then using the guns...hovering in the air and unleashing a barrage of ice/fire abilities was a lot of fun...
 
polonyc2 said:
I loved the abilities...way more fun then using the guns...hovering in the air and unleashing a barrage of ice/fire abilities was a lot of fun...
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The problem was that everything felt super bullet spongey no matter what weapons or abilities you used. It was worse than Destiny on that.
 
Dan_D said:
The problem was that everything felt super bullet spongey no matter what weapons or abilities you used. It was worse than Destiny on that.
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That's what I thought too. I generally don't like bullet sponge games because they're usually just bad games. You can have bullet sponges in good games, but the rest of the game has to mesh with that. In Anthem it doesn't. Everything works like a normal FPS, but they gave the enemies more health. Same for most other crappy bullet sponge games.

Good bullet sponge: Enemies that force you to duck and dodge special attacks as you're unloading with unlimited ammo. There's more to it than just running straight or standing still and shooting. A lot of games do this well, but it's usually just the bosses that are bullet sponges, the regular enemies die very quickly.
Bad bullet sponge: Normal looking person taking a full magazine to the face, getting blown up by grenades and not dying, gameplay dictating you fight them like a normal FPS fight. They just gave normal enemies more health. Even worse when the game limits ammo and you run out during the fight and spend more time looking for ammo than fighting.
 
sharknice said:
That's what I thought too. I generally don't like bullet sponge games because they're usually just bad games. You can have bullet sponges in good games, but the rest of the game has to mesh with that. In Anthem it doesn't. Everything works like a normal FPS, but they gave the enemies more health. Same for most other crappy bullet sponge games.

Good bullet sponge: Enemies that force you to duck and dodge special attacks as you're unloading with unlimited ammo. There's more to it than just running straight or standing still and shooting. A lot of games do this well, but it's usually just the bosses that are bullet sponges, the regular enemies die very quickly.
Bad bullet sponge: Normal looking person taking a full magazine to the face, getting blown up by grenades and not dying, gameplay dictating you fight them like a normal FPS fight. They just gave normal enemies more health. Even worse when the game limits ammo and you run out during the fight and spend more time looking for ammo than fighting.
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The Division games are filled with bullet sponge enemies yet not many people seem to mind...
 
polonyc2 said:
The Division games are filled with bullet sponge enemies yet not many people seem to mind...
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Too bullet spongy was the #1 complaint people had about The Division games.

Of course some people are into that stuff. Mindlessly grinding while enjoying the story, or cooperative experience or whatever. They could have been much better games though.
 
I don't mind some bullet sponge, but there is a balance. Either things are too easy, or they are too hard. When you've reached the point where you're just sitting there dumping magazine after magazine into an enemy, it's just bad gameplay IMO.
 
Mchart said:
I don't mind some bullet sponge, but there is a balance. Either things are too easy, or they are too hard. When you've reached the point where you're just sitting there dumping magazine after magazine into an enemy, it's just bad gameplay IMO.
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This is generally the problem. The enemies aren't hard to kill because they are challenging, they are hard to kill because it takes a half hour to kill something and about 4,500 rounds.
 
Dan_D said:
This is generally the problem. The enemies aren't hard to kill because they are challenging, they are hard to kill because it takes a half hour to kill something and about 4,500 rounds.
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Reminds me of dragons in Dragon Age Inquisition. And when the damn game crashed in the 29th minute.
 
Yuuup. Hell, Digital Extremes barely slowed down with content. But they're Canucks so <insert mild joke here>.
 
they should come back to this one day and see if they can make Anthem 2...the gameplay, mechanics and graphics were solid so the framework is there for a great game...they just needed to add more content and refine some of the gameplay
 
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I feel sad about this. Seeing your vision take shape over years, and then it failing to live up to your expectations. I got Anthem for free as one of 3 games when I bought my 2080ti, and I enjoyed it but didn't play it much. The flying, shooting, and environments were great. I feel like there was something really fun there and i'm upset that it didn't pan out. I was curious to see what they were going to try to make out of the game.

I was surprised to hear of the new Dragon Age and Mass Effect and wondered how they were going to revamp and support Anthem and develop two other big-name games while simultaneously try to rebuild their image after the disappointment of Anthem and Andromeda, but now I am really hoping that the abandoning of Anthem will allow Bioware to laser focus on the new Mass Effect game and really give us an amazing title.

I am upset for the people who truly enjoyed Anthem and have been supporting and hoping for the revamp, but at least their worst fears are now realized and can move on. Maybe one day if Bioware decides to come back to the world of Anthem they will really think it through and build upon what I think was a great start.
 
MavericK said:
I mean, they kinda did that with Titanfall...the first game wasn't "dead", per se, but it definitely died off quickly and Titanfall 2 revitalized the IP.
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Titanfall got decent acclaim though.

If you look at the number of dead IP's EA owns, it is much more likely for this to be graveyarded.

Bioware itself is just about to be graveyarded.
 
zamardii12 said:
I feel sad about this. Seeing your vision take shape over years, and then it failing to live up to your expectations. I got Anthem for free as one of 3 games when I bought my 2080ti, and I enjoyed it but didn't play it much. The flying, shooting, and environments were great. I feel like there was something really fun there and i'm upset that it didn't pan out. I was curious to see what they were going to try to make out of the game.
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That's precisely the problem. There wasn't a vision for what the game was supposed to be.
 
Q-BZ said:
There can’t be any person that’s even remotely surprised by this overdue news on what was a stillborn project in the first place.
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I don't think anyone is surprised by this. However, I do think there are a few people that are disappointed in the outcome.
 
polonyc2 said:
they should come back to this one day and see if they can make Anthem 2...the gameplay, mechanics and graphics were solid so the framework is there for a great game...they just needed to add more content and refine some of the gameplay
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Give it up bud, I told you there was not going to be any magical patch to fix this gigantic turd....and I was 100% right. EA will always be EA.
 
Blade-Runner said:
Give it up bud, I told you there was not going to be any magical patch to fix this gigantic turd....and I was 100% right. EA will always be EA.
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you say that about 90% of games so it's not some prophetic statement...you make up your mind well before most games even come out based on the publisher or developer etc and then set out to justify your position of waiting for a $5 Steam sale throughout the release...Battlefront 2 made a huge turnaround yet you still refuse to give EA credit for that...No Man's Sky is another example...just because you wait for games to hit the $10 bargain bin doesn't mean that all games are not worth playing at launch

I wait for sales myself for a lot of games and rarely pre-order (unless it's a developer like From Software) but I don't regret taking a chance with Anthem...the game had issues as far as endgame content and repetitiveness but like I've said multiple times the basic framework in terms of gameplay and mechanics was solid...I haven't bought Cyberpunk 2077 yet due to the bugs but I plan to once the game gets in better shape so I don't just blindly buy games even if it's something I'm really interested in playing
 
polonyc2 said:
you say that about 90% of games so it's not some prophetic statement...you make up your mind well before most games even come out based on the publisher or developer etc and then set out to justify your position of waiting for a $5 Steam sale throughout the release...Battlefront 2 made a huge turnaround yet you still refuse to give EA credit for that...No Man's Sky is another example...just because you wait for games to hit the $10 bargain bin doesn't mean that all games are not worth playing at launch

I wait for sales myself for a lot of games and rarely pre-order (unless it's a developer like From Software) but I don't regret taking a chance with Anthem...the game had issues as far as endgame content and repetitiveness but like I've said multiple times the basic framework in terms of gameplay and mechanics was solid...I haven't bought Cyberpunk 2077 yet due to the bugs but I plan to once the game gets in better shape so I don't just blindly buy games even if it's something I'm really interested in playing
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1. anthem is dead and should stay that way, the plot was trash. recycle the good systems into something else.

2. You keep hopping on CP2077 yet you havent even played it!
 
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