The Rise and Fall of Anthem

Quite the whirlwind of emotions watching this video:

A few comments;

• That original E3 Reveal trailer is still pretty darn amazing (despite being a cavalcade of lies)

• BioWare bugs are the best bugs. As great as that Assassin’s Creed horror-face bug was, the breadth and severity of Anthem bugs are 2nd to none. They go from ME Andromeda style animation quirks to “whoops, the game just bricked my PS4”. They deserve some kind of award.

• If I ever consider buying another BioWare game, even for a moment, somebody please smack me.

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I was really hoping it would be good, and gain traction. It was definitely a wait-and-see for me, and boy howdy, am I glad I did. But I really wanted BioWare to succeed in launching a new quality IP. Oh well.

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I played like six hours of that game through the EA Access trial. It’s not hyperbole when I say it is legitimately the worst game I’ve ever played. It has absolutely no redeeming qualities. Apart from being quite literally so broken that it was basically unplayable, it was boring and bland at every turn, with awful quest design, boring encounter design, and stupid enemies with no interesting behaviors or anything that made you actually use the powers at your disposal.

It feels less than half-baked on nearly every level. I experienced almost everything shown in that video in six hours.

I mostly liked Andromeda, despite its flaws. Anthem was an absolute shitshow by comparison.

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I played like six hours of that game through the EA Access trial. It’s not hyperbole when I say it is legitimately the worst game I’ve ever played.

I see you've never tried Virtual Bart.

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I never had a good feeling about Anthem. Part of it was the way BioWare abandoned Mass Effect: Andromeda. I guess I don’t really trust any studio to work on / support more than one AAA game at a time. For Anthem specifically, it seemed very odd to abandon an established franchise for a new, unproven one.

Later, when I tried the beta, I was just completely unimpressed. Yes, it was pretty... but in that “you’re stuck in this pretty tunnel don’t stray too far” kind of way. The combat didn’t click with me. And the flight, which was supposed to be the highlight of the game, just kinda wasn’t fun except maybe for the class that got permanent hover.

I’m kinda glad Anthem is dying. Maybe it’ll teach BioWare to not try and have two sci-fi properties at the same time.

Also there was this article somewhat recently that I agreed with. Along with the Kotaku postmortems on Andromeda and Anthem, I’m pretty much in the “prove yourself before I buy your stuff, BioWare” camp as well...

And remember, I liked Andromeda. It had some issues, but set up a nice branch of the Mass Effect universe that dlc and a sequel could have made great.

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Destiny, in all its unevenness, has somehow become one of the few loot shooters that games like Anthem point to as the one to beat. I’m not sure if making a good Destiny-like game is harder than it seems, or if most who have tried recently (like BioWare with Anthem) have just had the unfortunate reality of being terrible.

Is Bungie doing well, or is it winning because its competitors are just awful?

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Is Bungie doing well, or is it winning because its competitors are just awful?

Honestly I think the reason competitors aren't doing so well is because they are all trying to make a mind blowing game in the genre and failing at 80% of it. Where as Destiny, did about 60% of it rock solid but missed a beat or failed at the other 40%. It recovered, in my opinion, on most of that 40% at this point.

I think companies need to realize that even if you have 2000 employees doesn't mean you can pump out multiple mind blowing games with sheer will and burnt out employees. Make something solid and then expand upon it.

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How much of it is just market saturation?

I can’t imagine many people really have the time to invest in more than one of these type of games. At this point, most people have probably picked Destiny or Warframe or The Division or whatever it is. So it’s going to take something incredible to pull players away from something they’re already deeply invested in.

Anthem could have been the best game ever made, and I’d still probably be playing Destiny instead, because I’m already in it, and that’s where all my friends are.

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Anthem could have been the best game ever made, and I’d still probably be playing Destiny instead, because I’m already in it, and that’s where all my friends are.

I mean, it depends on the game. I started playing Apex because it's an amazing fun game. I still play Destiny as well because, like you said, my friends are playing that. But one should be able to figure out how good a game is by 5-10 hours of play.

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Apex is different, for me at least. There is no feeling of being left behind or missing out if I stop playing for a few weeks. There’s no power grind to worry about.

If I stop playing Destiny for a few weeks, I actually do fall behind, and the longer I’m away, the more difficult it is to catch up. I can’t even keep up on more than one character, much less an entirely different game.

If Anthem has been good, I’d have had to choose between it and Destiny. There’s very little possibility that Anthem would have won that fight, no matter its quality. It would have to have been so superior to Destiny, that I honestly can’t even imagine a game being that good. If it had been great, I’d have probably bought it and played for a month, but then I’d be back to Destiny.

I suppose there’s a world where people alternate between these live service games. I’m sure plenty of people do. But we’ve reached such a high pace of content, that hardly leaves time for anything else, and I still enjoy other games too much to want to play more than one service game.

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Apex is different, for me at least. There is no feeling of being left behind or missing out if I stop playing for a few weeks. There’s no power grind to worry about.

If I stop playing Destiny for a few weeks, I actually do fall behind, and the longer I’m away, the more difficult it is to catch up. I can’t even keep up on more than one character, much less an entirely different game.

If Anthem has been good, I’d have had to choose between it and Destiny. There’s very little possibility that Anthem would have won that fight, no matter its quality. It would have to have been so superior to Destiny, that I honestly can’t even imagine a game being that good. If it had been great, I’d have probably bought it and played for a month, but then I’d be back to Destiny.

I suppose there’s a world where people alternate between these live service games. I’m sure plenty of people do. But we’ve reached such a high pace of content, that hardly leaves time for anything else, and I still enjoy other games too much to want to play more than one service game.

And I mostly agree with you, Apex was just an example I used because for me, it's my only other case that even remotely has something you can do on a daily and weekly basis that I play with other people.

I don't know how Anthem played, so I don't know how close it is to Destiny in regards to playing daily with your friends and how much of a time sink it is. If it was a game where I can pop on and play for a couple hours and it was a quality game then I would totally play it alongside Destiny. Really depends on the quality and type of game really.

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I never had a good feeling about Anthem. Part of it was the way BioWare abandoned Mass Effect: Andromeda. I guess I don’t really trust any studio to work on / support more than one AAA game at a time. For Anthem specifically, it seemed very odd to abandon an established franchise for a new, unproven one.

Later, when I tried the beta, I was just completely unimpressed. Yes, it was pretty... but in that “you’re stuck in this pretty tunnel don’t stray too far” kind of way. The combat didn’t click with me. And the flight, which was supposed to be the highlight of the game, just kinda wasn’t fun except maybe for the class that got permanent hover.

I’m kinda glad Anthem is dying. Maybe it’ll teach BioWare to not try and have two sci-fi properties at the same time.

Also there was this article somewhat recently that I agreed with. Along with the Kotaku postmortems on Andromeda and Anthem, I’m pretty much in the “prove yourself before I buy your stuff, BioWare” camp as well...

And remember, I liked Andromeda. It had some issues, but set up a nice branch of the Mass Effect universe that dlc and a sequel could have made great.

... and with all due respect for those of you who liked Andromeda, BioWare went on probation for me when the two main founders retired in September of 2012. Whether it's true or not, in my imagination the doctors were behind the attention to detail that grounded the Mass Effect trilogy's fantastic world building.

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... and with all due respect for those of you who liked Andromeda, BioWare went on probation for me when the two main founders retired in September of 2012. Whether it's true or not, in my imagination the doctors were behind the attention to detail that grounded the Mass Effect trilogy's fantastic world building.

Honestly, I don't understand the shit storm that Andromeda got. I noticed a few bugs when I played through the campaign and some of the multiplayer, and I wasn't late to the game either... But nothing that was game breaking. I very much enjoyed that game. It wasn't as good story wise as the other games, but I also saw Andromeda as a new Mass Effect IP. It had potential and then it was shut down :(

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Honestly, I don't understand the shit storm that Andromeda got. I noticed a few bugs when I played through the campaign and some of the multiplayer, and I wasn't late to the game either... But nothing that was game breaking. I very much enjoyed that game. It wasn't as good story wise as the other games, but I also saw Andromeda as a new Mass Effect IP. It had potential and then it was shut down :(

I had a slightly different experience. I still really enjoyed the story and gameplay, but some of the bugs were so bad it was like the game was actively trying to prevent me from playing it. Until Bioware learns to finish games before they release them, I'm done buying anything with their name on it. Anthem just proved it was the right call.

-Disciple

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I can't remember having any significant bugs. The only thing disappointing about Andromeda to me was that the multiplayer wasn't anywhere near as good as Mass Effect 3's.

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There was no rise. Just an idea and ignorant woeful mismanagement. They baked their own pie, and were crushed under their own crow. I can't recall when I said it, but players only have so much time to play -any- game. So with this gold rush of "always" on games, what are they bringing to the table? Why would I want to play their game? Under what we are aware of with the Kotaku stuff, looks like Bioware couldn't find an answer wither, and from this Youtube video, still can't.

Plus, Bungie has 5 years of Million+ Man Q&A Head Start. It looked like Bioware wanted to see if they could play the game, metaphorically speaking. Turns out they weren't even a player. And EA once again gets its prize. >_<

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The Rise and Fall of Anthem (Gaming)

Tragic. Just tragic.