Any angle you look at it from, BioWare’s Anthem isn’t in the best spot. While other games like Destiny 2, The Division 2, Warframe, and Path of Exile are thriving, BioWare’s looter shooter is still struggling in terms of content, performance, and other issues. Still, Electronic Arts CEO Andrew Wilson believes that the core game is “compelling” despite the issues, and can be made into “something special and something great.”
Speaking to GameDaily.biz, Wilson talked about the initial challenge of trying to cater to two groups – the first seeking a traditional BioWare narrative, and the second looking for a compelling looter shooter.
“We brought together these two groups of players who were making this emotional value calculation on two different vectors,” said Wilson. “One was traditional BioWare story driven content, and the other was this action-adventure type content. About the 30 or 40 hour mark they really had to come together and start working in on the elder game. At that point everyone kind of went, ‘Oh, hang a minute.’ Now the calculation is off. The promise was we can play together, and that’s not working very well.”
Wilson noted there will be different expectations for what current generation players have from a BioWare title. “We’re going to have our core BioWare audience that’s been with us for a really long time. There are kids today who are 12 years old who weren’t around when BioWare started making games… and they have different expectations of what a BioWare game should be in the context of the world they’ve grown up in.
“As a result of that, BioWare has to evolve and has to expand and has to test the elasticity of that brand. The teams at BioWare will continue to come to work every day and listen to their players old and new and seek to deliver on the promises they’ve made to those players. That’s what you’re seeing with Anthem today.”
Though the game’s core elements are described as “compelling”, Wilson also said that a game like Anthem “lives for generations”- even if it didn’t have the start that many expected from it. “So, if I think about Anthem on a seven to ten year cycle, it may not have had the start that many of us wanted, including our players,” said Wilson. “I feel like that team is really going to get there with something special and something great, because they’ve demonstrated that they can.”
While this is all well and good, many of Anthem’s biggest issues continue to remain. The reveal of the Cataclysm, which is an eight week timed event, has been described as disappointing by fans. BioWare has yet to address the game’s RNG and stinginess with loot or the complete imbalance with Grandmaster 3 difficulty. Regardless, we’ll still see if Anthem can make a comeback and establish itself as a competitor, especially with newer looter shooters like Borderlands 3 on the way.
