Anthem
The number of ways that Anthem’s release pretty much-mirrored Fallout 76 is almost insane, especially since it was released just a few months later. Before launch, you had all of the triple-A cliches – BioWare revealing “gameplay” that looked way too good to seem real-time (and was later confirmed to be complete “smoke and mirrors”). A troubling development cycle stretching years and years with numerous people leaving. A sparse amount of details leading up to launch, coupled with delays and reports of crunch. Memes about “BioWare Magic” and how the developer believed everything could come together at the last minute in development (proven horribly, horribly wrong).
But the most hilarious part was, once again, the beta that was released just a month or so before launch. Once again, we all thought that many of its core issues would be fixed. And hey, the Iron Man-like flying was fun, at least.
Lo and behold, the actual game was far worse. Combat was a catastrophe; loot drops in the non-existent endgame were stingy as heck; bugs were everywhere, accompanied by horrible performance; heading out into the open world required menus upon menus; and so on. The game itself was also broken up strangely. You had a single-player hub explored in first-person with awkward cutscenes while the actual combat was in third-person and in a completely separate open space that was as barren as it was visually lush.
BioWare’s reputation was already on thin ice following Mass Effect: Andromeda but Anthem was pretty much its death knell. The backlash didn’t stop with the horrible launch either as despite delivering numerous updates, the developer failed to live up to its road map, delaying and eventually cancelling several promised features like guilds, leaderboards, expanded progression, and so on. An internal “Anthem Next” was planned but ultimately cancelled before it even got off the ground.
