Anthem was never meant to be BioWare’s “Destiny killer”
Anthem was a game that never managed to take off. Mixing live service and multiplayer game elements into a sci-fi shooter, it was set to be the next big IP from Mass Effect and Dragon Age developer, BioWare. But a combination of punishing development schedules, undercooked ideas, and some consumer confusion in regards to Anthem being like Destiny sank it, and now one of the former developers has opened up about the experience of making the game.
This comes from former BioWare developer and Anthem quality assurance lead Ian Saterdalen, who took to Twitter to respond to a viral thread asking game developers to talk about what they loved from their lowest-reviewed game, and Saterdalen chose to talk about Anthem.
“We knew it wasn’t ready, as this game was literally created in 15 months,” Saterdalen starts. “Which is unheard of for a game that scope. Anthem 2 would have been great!”
The lack of development time was a massive factor in Anthem’s critical reception, as it was seen as unfinished across the board, turning it into a dead-in-the-water live service experience. Our Anthem review from 2019 thought as much, saying it was weighed down by “repetitive missions and a flabby structure.”
When asked how BioWare managed to create Anthem in just 15 months, Saterdalen talked about the crunch – the over-the-top workload to get Anthem over the line – faced by the studio.
“I was working about 90 hours a week (and many others on the team) for 15 months (I’m sure others were doing those hours before I arrived). It wasn’t sustainable or even a position we should have been in.
“Maybe to our own detriment, we were too passionate to continue working in those conditions?” Saterdalen adds in another tweet. “I support unions, I hope it
Read more on pcgamesn.com
