BioWare is Preparing Anthem Reboot with Major Changes Coming

[AleksandarK]

BioWare, big game development studio which announced last year a highly anticipated game Anthem, is now officially confirming that Anthem is getting a reboot. With many problems hunting the game from day one, BioWare fans were a bit disappointed to see a game with such potential wasted. For example, current weak points were overall game progression and the lack of any meaningful activities in the game. To improve the game, BioWare posted an announcement in their blog where BioWare General Manager Casey Hudson explained what they plan to do in the future.

"We have also heard your feedback that Anthem needs a more satisfying loot experience, better long-term progression, and a more fulfilling end game. So we recognize that there's still more fundamental work to be done to bring out the full potential of the experience, and it will require a more substantial reinvention than an update or expansion", said Casey Hudson in the blog. This confirms BioWare's intention to improve the game and that there is no simple update that could address current issues, so we are inbound for a refresh.


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[Crackong]

Anthem still exists ?

 

[Daisho11]

Sunset in 2 years tops.

 

[oldtimenoob]

Anthem still exists ?

I got it with my RTX card back in the day, play a whole 3 hours on it, before uninstalling it.
Will give it a chance again after the reboot.

 

[silentbogo]

Reminds me of Evolve too much... With Destiny 2 being f2p and competition all over - it's just gonna be another flop even if it's going to be completely free (I mean, not requiring subscription).

 

[steve360]

Bioware and EA learning a harsh lesson in what not to do when launching a game using new IP. It's a brilliant case study of how to completely mess up everything with a game.

The utter failure of their management
Faking the E3 demo
Rushing the game to meet a financial deadline to keep the shareholders happy
Using a hacky game engine that wasn't designed for a game like Anthem
Relying on the non-existent "Bioware magic" to fix up problems they created
Scrapping updates because of their incompetence

Anthem, as both a game and a franchise, is poisonous right now; no amount of redesigns or overhauls is going to save that dumpster fire.

So bad is the state of the game, it's selling for just $5 AUD at EB Games, which is about the cost of a relatively expensive cup of coffee.

As Shigeru Miyamoto says "A delayed game is eventually good, but a rushed game is forever bad."

 

[ZoneDymo]

I admire them for trying but it pretty much always is a wasted effort, you can only make a first impression once.

Evolve did a brave attempt to bring it back, it failed.
Death Garden, same thing, it failed.
Some indie game I cant remember the title off, it was bought up by another indie company aaaaand it failed.

Seems just better to start from scratch but use as much of the assets to reduce cost and giving it a new title.

 

[arbiter]

reboot a good choice depends. if they plan to make the game what it should be or just same steaming pile it was the first.

 

[dj-electric]

Poll is being weird again...

Yes, a reboot is a good decision, no, its not a good game - that's exactly why it needs a feature reboot

 

[Hyderz]

i've never played or looked up much on anthem, does it have any story/lore at all or is it just straight multiplayer grind fest to get to max level?

 

[ShurikN]

This game needed at least a year and a half of development and 6 months of polish. But you gotta please the investors.
Also Bioware looked insanely out of touch when it came to looter-shooters, even tho they had tons of games on the market to take inspiration from.

 

[DeathtoGnomes]

was wondering when this was gonna hit the front page here thanks @AleksandarK

I watched this game on several streams, it didnt look too bad. From what I remeber of it, it kinda looked like it was heading in the P2W direction with the loot boxes. Hopefully the repoop (shiiiit man!) of it will change that.

This game needed at least a year and a half of development and 6 months of polish. But you gotta please the investors.
Also Bioware looked insanely out of touch when it came to looter-shooters, even tho they had tons of games on the market to take inspiration from.

expect a large patch within 4 months after the re-release.

 

[Sybaris_Caesar]

This game needed at least a year and a half of development and 6 months of polish. But you gotta please the investors.
Also Bioware looked insanely out of touch when it came to looter-shooters, even tho they had tons of games on the market to take inspiration from.

This game needed proper direction. Haven't read the Jason Schreir/Kotaku article have ya? Bioware has been on this for 6 years with proper development ramping up only after the initial E3 reveal.

And the development motto was looter shooters don't exist. So taking inspiration from previous games, even discussion about them was no go. Just read the report. Without it we'd still be blaming EA corporate for what is obviously incompetence of Bioware Edmonton.

 

[ShurikN]

This game needed proper direction. Haven't read the Jason Schreir/Kotaku article have ya?

I have, I just wanted to keep it short. (and not too in depth)

 

[Vya Domus]

The concept of "rebooting" a game that is one year old and which was a colossal failure in scope is a fascinating idea. Game publishers have completely forgone any trace of contact with reality.

 

[Sybaris_Caesar]

Poll is being weird again...

Yes, a reboot is a good decision, no, its not a good game - that's exactly why it needs a feature reboot

It needs a reboot because future of EA live service/GaaS games depend on it. Nobody will buy live service games from a publisher who has a history of abandoning live service games.

Otoh instead of a skeleton crew pumping content and updates for Anthem with the majority of the studio moving onto Dragon Age 4, now the reboot effort of this dumpster fire must be leeching development from DA4. Tbf I'm not sure about Bioware's future and sincerely hope EA kills Bioware before their name gets dragged to mud more.

 

[bug]

When the first Witcher came out, people complained about choppiness and overall awkward/difficult controls. CDPR went back to the drawing board, addressed all complaints and released the Enhanced Edition. For free.
That's when I picked up the game, just to show support and that's when I became a believer (got the following titles on preorder).

In short, if you want to fix a game, you fix it. You don't talk about fixing it.

 

[cucker tarlson]

The concept of "rebooting" a game that is one year old and which was a colossal failure in scope is a fascinating idea. Game publishers have completely forgone any trace of contact with reality.

you know what's gonna make people want to byt the sequel even more - if the original was a fail.

 

[FreedomEclipse]

Some indie game I cant remember the title off, it was bought up by another indie company aaaaand it failed.

Two worlds?

 

[TheinsanegamerN]

This game needed proper direction. Haven't read the Jason Schreir/Kotaku article have ya? Bioware has been on this for 6 years with proper development ramping up only after the initial E3 reveal.

And the development motto was looter shooters don't exist. So taking inspiration from previous games, even discussion about them was no go. Just read the report. Without it we'd still be blaming EA corporate for what is obviously incompetence of Bioware Edmonton.

Who owns Bioware?

EA

Who is responsible for insuring that Bioware stays on track?

EA.

EA is the boss. They should have stepped in the moment it was obvious that there was 0 direction for anthem.

 

[Sybaris_Caesar]

Who owns Bioware?

EA

Who is responsible for insuring that Bioware stays on track?

EA.

EA is the boss. They should have stepped in the moment it was obvious that there was 0 direction for anthem.

Lol. There's no saving grace for EA is there. Micro-manage development and EA's at fault. Hands-off development and still EA's at fault.

I do agree that EA is guilty for nudging its studios to use Frostbite and Bioware paid for it by trying to frankenstein it for RPG a la ME Andromeda.

But then according to the Kotaku report the numb-heads at Bioware scrapped it and tried to frankenstein frostbite again for Anthem. That's sole on them.

At one point we have to admit that legendary studios aren't what they once were. Studios are compromised of people and the same people aren't just there anymore. Bathesda, Blizzard, Bioware etc. Hell even Dan Houser recently left Rockstar so I don't think it'll be same anymore too.

 

[INSTG8R]

I really enjoyed it but without a player base the games is rendered useless as you need a team do anything to progress. I’m curious how they plan to salvage it with this being the core gameplay presently.

 

[bug]

Lol. There's no saving grace for EA is there. Micro-manage development and EA's at fault. Hands-off development and still EA's at fault.

I do agree that EA is guilty for nudging its studios to use Frostbite and Bioware paid for it by trying to frankenstein it for RPG a la ME Andromeda.

But then according to the Kotaku report the numb-heads at Bioware scrapped it and tried to frankenstein frostbite again for Anthem. That's sole on them.

At one point we have to admit that legendary studios aren't what they once were. Studios are compromised of people and the same people aren't just there anymore. Bathesda, Blizzard, Bioware etc. Hell even Dan Houser recently left Rockstar so I don't think it'll be same anymore too.

There's no lol about it, as terrible as the team may be, when things go south, the guy in charge is always (among those) to blame.

 

[dozenfury]

I got selected for an early closed alpha for Anthem, and had to sign an NDA of course. But when I tried it in the alpha and saw what a dumpster fire it was (and that it was far beyond fixing before release) I wanted to scream from the mountaintops to warn people. Especially when I’d see people counting the days to release looking forward to it.

And the fact that Bioware still is putting resources into salvaging it long after it’s way too late for that, shows how misdirected the whole project was.

 

[Mals]

I wouldn't write it off completely. FF14 is my shining example of a launch that was absolutely hot garbage and ruined the franchise. Then the company took the opportunity to completely relaunch it, took multiple years and is now I think objectively the best MMO you can play. If actually executed correctly, you can resurrect a failed MMO. Obviously this isn't easy.