deuxhero
Arcane
BioWare has teased Cataclysms as Anthem's hardcore endgame content (similar, perhaps, to Destiny 2's raids), but no one knows what the hell they actually are
I think this is the best part.
BioWare has teased Cataclysms as Anthem's hardcore endgame content (similar, perhaps, to Destiny 2's raids), but no one knows what the hell they actually are
Anthem is going to be put out of its misery soon. Maybe Bioware along with it after EA is done salvaging whichever devs are worth keeping from the carcass.
https://www.newsweek.com/anthem-bioware-early-access-1404379
Major 'Anthem' Features Delayed And Game Relabeled "Early Access"
Updated on 4/24: The article and its headline originally stated that Anthem was still in early access due to the line, "It’s been ten weeks since the early access release of Anthem." However, that line was the developer providing a timeline. Early access did launch ten weeks ago, but the full game released nine weeks ago. We removed paragraph stating that and altered our headline. Newsweek regrets the error.
'Anthem' Delays Its Entire Roadmap, Hasn't Fixed Loot And This All Feels Very, Very Bad
Paul Tassi
Senior Contributor
Games News and opinion about video games, technology and the internet
Yesterday was the Red Wedding of news for Anthem. While an update brought some quality of life changes, some buffs and a new Stronghold, BioWare finally said what we all knew what was coming, but perhaps didn’t want to believe.
The entire Anthem roadmap is now delayed. BioWare delivered on practically nothing that was supposed to get here in April other than yesterday’s Stronghold and a live event or two, but now everything else that fans assumed would not be crammed into the final week of the month has indeed been delayed.
That would be things like a mastery system, guilds, leaderboards, various freeplay events, more legendary missions and also May’s Cataclysm, which BioWare will now talk about in May, but it almost certainly won’t be out next month. There is no revised roadmap, there are no new dates or months attached to any of these items, only a statement from BioWare that their mistake was talking about things too soon, and they’d wait to reveal stuff closer to when it was actually ready going forward.
Perhaps most biting was the section about loot in the update post, namely that BioWare knows that loot and progression are a problem, and they are working on fixes yet they have nothing to announce on the topic. No drop rate increases, no additional sources of legendaries, no word on new or missing items. And again, no promised dates for any potential upcoming changes.
This all culminated in one of the most awkward livestreams I’ve ever seen, with a dev/community team playing through the new Stronghold as chat spammed “LOOT” and all other manner of anger and confusion while the community manager explained they would only be talking about Stronghold, and referred everyone to the update post explaining that everything was delayed and loot wasn’t going to be fixed indefinitely. It was painful.
I have been one of Anthem’s most prominent optimists, despite my criticism, but something feels different now. The winds have changed. The oxygen has been sucked out of the room. It feels like there may just be too much wrong with Anthem to fix, and even if many loot shooters struggle in their early days, we’re in a spot where things feel worse than we ever saw with Diablo, Destiny or The Division. There is simply no reason to play the game as you can easily go for hours without making an iota of character progress, and if you do play, there is no reason to do anything but GM1 Heart of Rage runs over and over as the only mildly efficient way of getting loot, given current drop rates and the way activities work. There need to be massive changes made to almost every aspect of Anthem outside of its core combat, and I genuinely don’t know if it can be done. If BioWare won’t even do incredibly minor and obvious things like bump the legendary drop rate to appease their remaining players, how can we trust them to fix the much, much larger issues?
This update may have been honest, but it was dispiriting for fans who were hoping for if not fixes themselves, at least a timeline for fixes, but all it did is explain why the previous timeline didn’t pan out (there was too much other stuff to fix), and news that now we really won’t have any idea what fixes are coming or when. Longer term, we have no clear vision of where things are headed. We know Anthem has no DLC or true expansions, so how can it ever have its Taken King or Reaper of Souls moment for a grand turnaround? They can’t continue releasing content in tiny, random chunks like we see with this Stronghold, as that’s just wasting it. But it’s been months and we can’t even get a coherent explanation of what something supposedly concrete and near-term like the Cataclysm is.
In some ways, this feels like the end of the road for Anthem. I cannot predict the future, as the industry has been known to surprise us with comeback stories like No Man’s Sky or Final Fantasy XIV, but between Anthem’s current slate of problems and the fact that this is money-hungry EA and leadership-challenged BioWare we’re talking about here, the odds sure seem heavily stacked against Anthem at the moment, no matter how hard the team may be working to fix a game that clearly should not have been released this year in the first place.
Anthem crashing and burning!?
Crash? This shit exploded on the launchpad.
It's wrong to be paid for "sitting around all day and thinking Big Thoughts" but fine to be paid for crying in crying rooms and taking naps in unused offices.
Isn't that what "EA" stands for?How much of an asshole studio do you gotta be to start calling this shit show early access 2 months after retail release.
Before Anthem receives story DLC, BioWare needs to address its obsession with the male ego
By Jason Coles 3 days ago Feature
Anthem has a problem with male ego and it's dragging its storytelling down
BioWare is slowly turning Anthem around. That process certainly hasn't been easy for the studio, but it is at least making good on its commitment to continue supporting the game. In an effort to get Anthem where it needs to be, the studio was forced to admit that it isn't going to achieve all of its Act 1 Calendar goals, pushing back the introduction of elements such as the Cataclysm, Mastery System, Guilds, and phase 2 of the Legendary Missions, along other highly requested features from the community.
BioWare understands that its end-game content isn't where it needs to be, which means it can't possibly begin to take the next steps towards Anthem's evolution – the undercurrent to all of this is that we shouldn't expect to see any story DLC for a little while. And, to be perfectly honest, that probably isn't a bad thing.
Before BioWare even thinks about expanding out the story of Anthem, it should really consider looking at the failings of the base game's narrative and of the instances of male ego that drives the story forward – toxic masculinity which ultimately works to the detriment of the story's core development and resolution.
Is that the entire article?