If there’s one thing that everyone and their dog has said to BioWare, directly or otherwise, about the failure of Anthem, it’s “I told you so.” A studio renowned for its single-player-focused role-playing games, working on a live service looter shooter? It wasn’t meant to be.
Unsurprisingly, former executive producer Mark Darrah heard plenty of this around release time. Speaking to Destin Legarie after servers shut down for the title, he said many came “out of the woodwork” to proclaim the above. However, he views its creation as a natural process since BioWare has “always been changing.”
“My feeling is that BioWare’s always been changing. I mean, by that argument, we should have never made Neverwinter Nights because we were a 2D RPG maker. We should never have made Mass Effect because we were a tactical RPG maker, not an action RPG maker. So, I don’t know that that argument holds a lot of weight for me.”
It’s hard to disagree – by that measure, BioWare had no business working on Baldur’s Gate, a Dungeons and Dragons role-playing game, after releasing Shattered Steel.
But that approach doesn’t always guarantee success. “Studios evolve, and they try new things. Was Anthem too big of a reach? Yeah, for sure. But could you tell at the time? I don’t know. I don’t know that you could,” said Darrah.
Furthermore, he noted that while publisher Electronic Arts “certainly” deserves a “bunch of blame for Anthem,” its failure is “not all their fault.” Remember reports about how the launch version came together roughly a year before release? Or how many team members only learned that it was called Anthem after seeing the first reveal trailer? If it weren’t for former CEO Patrick Söderlund, there apparently wouldn’t have even been flying.
After shipping the relatively disappointing Dragon Age: The Veilguard, BioWare is now focused on the next Mass Effect. While being a single-project studio has its issues, Darrah said in the same interview that it’s “probably for the best.” Granted, we haven’t seen any gameplay, but the teasers have slowly ramped up over the years, including the recent artwork of a Krogan Civil War.
