Way back on February 10th, 2020, Casey Hudson — BioWare’s general manager — noted that Anthem would be re-invented in the coming months. Well, according to a new blog post, EA and BioWare have a team that’s currently working on fixing content for Anthem.
We all know that Anthem has its fair share of problems, but as of now, BioWare is working on reviving Anthem to save it from its current state by forming a team of 30 developers to help the game’s incubation process.
For those of you unaware as to what an incubation process is, it’s a term used in development to refer to a team going back and trying different methods to improve on faulty game mechanics/systems.
This information comes from Christian Dailey — BioWare studio director (Austin office). Dailey details what milestone number his team is on and the perks of a small team via blog.bioware.com:
“My name is Christian, and I am the Studio Director for the BioWare Austin office that is leading the production of what we are exploring NEXT for Anthem. NICE TO MEET YOU!
The Anthem incubation team has kicked off and we are starting to validate our design hypotheses. […] We are a small team – about 30-ish, earning our way forward as we set out to hit our first major milestone goals. Spoiler – this is going to be a longer process. And yes, the team is small but the whole point of this is to take our time and go back to the drawing board. And a small team gives us the agility a larger one can’t afford.”
Dailey continues:
“We really want this experience to be different for the team and our players, but we know we have some tough challenges to tackle. We want to include you as we go and be open and honest with where we are at and what the expectations are with where we are going. The reality is you will see things that look awesome but end up on the cutting room floor or things that you might think suck that you feel we are spending too much time on – but in the spirit of experimentation this is all OK. We really want to provide you all the transparency we can because of your passion and interest in Anthem. But, with that comes seeing how the sausage is made – which is not always pretty by the way.”
In other words, fans can offer feedback while expecting more info from Dailey and his team through future updates. On the topic of fans being involved with Anthem’s development, Dailey wants to post art, blogs, and “comms” to interact with the community in an attempt to be more transparent:
“We also want to start putting together some regular comms out to everyone to show/talk about these changes and our progress. This blog is one example, but we also want to include you in more of the day to day and hopefully get you some real interactions with the team. These updates could come in the form of an ad-hoc live stream, or some cool concept art posted on social media, or the occasional feed of me curled up in a ball crying in the corner…”
So what does this all mean? It means that the act of exploring the “NEXT” step for Anthem is in full swing as well as the game’s incubation process. All of this is expected to take “a long time.”
In the meantime, Anthem is available to pick up right now across PC, PS4, and Xbox One.
