When Anthem launched six years ago, it came with sky-high ambitions. But the game that was supposed to be EA and BioWare's next big thing fell far short of expectations. After years of treading water, Anthem will shut down for good early next year. It's now reduced to a mere footnote in gaming history, a messy, tumultuous tale of what could have been, a story now (almost) fully told by the game's former executive producer Mark Darrah in a lengthy YouTube video.
Darrah explains that Casey Hudson, one of the driving forces behind Mass Effect, didn't just pitch Anthem as a new game, but as an entirely new vision for the studio. The goal was to combine BioWare's trademark storytelling with a live-service model, essentially their own version of FIFA, at least in terms of revenue potential.
According to Darrah, much of Hudson's original vision was gone by the time the game shipped, but the bold pitch had given the project momentum and early team members were highly enthusiastic. He describes an early presentation video that painted BioWare as needing to change in order to survive, a message that seems to have originated from higher up, echoing EA's leadership.
Trouble began when Hudson left the studio mid-development. No one remaining on the team truly understood what "the future of storytelling" meant, and without clear leadership, Anthem lost its identity. Darrah suggested delaying the game and prioritising Dragon Age 4, but EA pushed ahead with release.
This is as far as he gets in this first part, but Darrah promises to continue his account soon with more insights, and perhaps concrete answers about how such an ambitious vision went so wrong.
<social>https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9_QY8F8z_4c</social>