Re: Anthem (PS4,X1,PC)
OK since that article is a VERY LONG read, I will highlight the bullet points for you guys:
1. Anthem is not what the game was called originally. The original name was Beyond. EA changed it to Anthem a week before E3 after the staff already had t-shirts made with Beyond printed on them.
2. Anthem originally wasn't designed to be a looter shooter. It was designed to be a survival game. EA wanted a long term monetized based game instead.
3. Anthem was in development for 6 1/2 years. They pulled staff from Mass Effect Andromeda, Dragon Age 4 and Dice to help make the game.
4. Frostbite severely limited what they could do. They originally planned to have multiple cities, forts, towns, mobile striders, different season, thunder storms, snow falling. Frostbite engine however couldn't do it. So what was left was one season, one fort and no mobile striders.
5. When FIFA moved to frostbite in 2016, EA pulled all their top people who knew how to use Frostbite to work on FIFA because FIFA make EA their most money. So that left Bioware with people who had no idea how Frostbite worked. Every time Bioware would call EA about a problem with Frostbite, EA would take a week or more to respond to them.
6. In the winter of 2016, they gave a demo to the head of EA Patrick Soderland. He played it and basically said WTF is this BS ? I don't like it, the game is trash, the graphics is trash, make something else. So Patrick flew the heads of Bioware to Dice in Sweden for they can learn to make better looking graphics in Frostbite.
7. Bioware basically built a brand new game just to appease Patrick Soderland. He flew to Bioware in 2017 to see if they made something that he liked. Previously flying was not part of the game, they never could get it to work in Frostbite, it broke many things. But for the demo for Patrick in June they put flying back in the game. Patrick loved it and said that is cool. Which lead to Bioware to figure out how to put flying into the game permanently without the game crashing. That flying demo they did for Patrick became that year's E3 trailer. But at that point though, that is all they had of the game. Story wasn't made yet, none of the missions were made yet. Also EA dropped a bombshell on Bioware, saying they want the game to be out by the fall of 2018.
8. Bioware lost dozens of people, had several different people who was the director of the game. All the devs kept saying you know, this game is basically a Destiny clone. EA hated that reference, so Destiny was basically a forbidden word to use at Bioware.
9. EA put tremendous pressure on Bioware, kept demanding changes and kept telling them it better not flop like the last Mass Effect. This lead to many devs being so stressed out they were placed on medical leave for stress for weeks and months at a time.
10. Majority of the stuff couldn't even be tested. Online servers weren't working. The missions were made yet. Online servers were so bad they had to make and test the missions for offline use because the servers kept on crashing. When Bioware complained to EA, EA just told them to not worry about, just get the game done. When Bioware complained about the long loading screen time, EA told them not worry about it, fix afterwards, this game must launch before this fiscal year is up.
11. The build that was released on launch day was only 2 weeks old.
12. So in conclusion, what Bioware wanted to make, they couldn't because of Frostbite. What they semi wanted to do, EA didn't like and told them make a new game. So basically Anthem was made in a year, a complete rush job of something Bioware never wanted to or intended to do. Frosbite is a terrible game engine. EA only cared about a monetized game. Also in the devs own words, EA only helps and pay attention to the games that make them a lot of money, which for EA is FIFA and the Battlefield series. Every other game dev company is treated like a red head step child, ignored, no help given.
OK since that article is a VERY LONG read, I will highlight the bullet points for you guys:
1. Anthem is not what the game was called originally. The original name was Beyond. EA changed it to Anthem a week before E3 after the staff already had t-shirts made with Beyond printed on them.
2. Anthem originally wasn't designed to be a looter shooter. It was designed to be a survival game. EA wanted a long term monetized based game instead.
3. Anthem was in development for 6 1/2 years. They pulled staff from Mass Effect Andromeda, Dragon Age 4 and Dice to help make the game.
4. Frostbite severely limited what they could do. They originally planned to have multiple cities, forts, towns, mobile striders, different season, thunder storms, snow falling. Frostbite engine however couldn't do it. So what was left was one season, one fort and no mobile striders.
5. When FIFA moved to frostbite in 2016, EA pulled all their top people who knew how to use Frostbite to work on FIFA because FIFA make EA their most money. So that left Bioware with people who had no idea how Frostbite worked. Every time Bioware would call EA about a problem with Frostbite, EA would take a week or more to respond to them.
6. In the winter of 2016, they gave a demo to the head of EA Patrick Soderland. He played it and basically said WTF is this BS ? I don't like it, the game is trash, the graphics is trash, make something else. So Patrick flew the heads of Bioware to Dice in Sweden for they can learn to make better looking graphics in Frostbite.
7. Bioware basically built a brand new game just to appease Patrick Soderland. He flew to Bioware in 2017 to see if they made something that he liked. Previously flying was not part of the game, they never could get it to work in Frostbite, it broke many things. But for the demo for Patrick in June they put flying back in the game. Patrick loved it and said that is cool. Which lead to Bioware to figure out how to put flying into the game permanently without the game crashing. That flying demo they did for Patrick became that year's E3 trailer. But at that point though, that is all they had of the game. Story wasn't made yet, none of the missions were made yet. Also EA dropped a bombshell on Bioware, saying they want the game to be out by the fall of 2018.
8. Bioware lost dozens of people, had several different people who was the director of the game. All the devs kept saying you know, this game is basically a Destiny clone. EA hated that reference, so Destiny was basically a forbidden word to use at Bioware.
9. EA put tremendous pressure on Bioware, kept demanding changes and kept telling them it better not flop like the last Mass Effect. This lead to many devs being so stressed out they were placed on medical leave for stress for weeks and months at a time.
10. Majority of the stuff couldn't even be tested. Online servers weren't working. The missions were made yet. Online servers were so bad they had to make and test the missions for offline use because the servers kept on crashing. When Bioware complained to EA, EA just told them to not worry about, just get the game done. When Bioware complained about the long loading screen time, EA told them not worry about it, fix afterwards, this game must launch before this fiscal year is up.
11. The build that was released on launch day was only 2 weeks old.
12. So in conclusion, what Bioware wanted to make, they couldn't because of Frostbite. What they semi wanted to do, EA didn't like and told them make a new game. So basically Anthem was made in a year, a complete rush job of something Bioware never wanted to or intended to do. Frosbite is a terrible game engine. EA only cared about a monetized game. Also in the devs own words, EA only helps and pay attention to the games that make them a lot of money, which for EA is FIFA and the Battlefield series. Every other game dev company is treated like a red head step child, ignored, no help given.
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