Kotaku Reports Bioware Pushed "Anthem" to March 2019 - Sensationalist Headlines

[quote]Over the past few months, BioWare has essentially transformed into a single-game studio as it harnesses its teams to work on the ambitious multiplayer action game Anthem, sources say. There are still small teams maintaining Star Wars: The Old Republic and piecing together the next Dragon Age, which was recently rebooted, but the bulk of BioWare’s staff in both Edmonton and Austin are now on Anthem. And there’s a sense among BioWare employees that the company’s future is inextricably tied to this game. Anthem, which was announced at E3 2017, is now scheduled for release in early 2019, according to three people familiar with the project. The “fall 2018” window mentioned during that E3 announcement was “never realistic,” one source said. Exact dates remain in flux—and Anthem’s developers must also plan for a beta release, an EA Access launch, and an ongoing schedule of patches and updates—but it appears unlikely to developers that publisher EA will allow BioWare to delay the game any further than March 2019, when the company’s 2019 fiscal year comes to an end. (EA, like most publicly traded companies, uses the fiscal calendar as a basis for all of its decisions, as those dates determine how investors will behave.)[/quote] It's one of those "That's bullshit, but I believe it" stories, but it was this that made me want to share it. [quote]It’s not unusual for BioWare to pull staff from other projects as it enters the final year of production on a game. In recent years, BioWare has done the same for both Mass Effect: Andromeda and Dragon Age: Inquisition. But Anthem, the studio’s first new franchise in eight years and EA’s first big stab at a Destiny-style persistent online world, feels different. To BioWare staff, the stakes feel higher than they ever have. [B]As one developer told me, there’s a belief that if Anthem doesn’t live up to EA’s expectations, BioWare will look very different in the future, especially after the disappointment of Mass Effect Andromeda led to EA absorbing BioWare Montreal into the studio EA Motive.[/B][/quote] [url=http://archive.is/qekkZ]Archive of Kotaku's article[/url]

Does anyone really believe this game is going to be anything more than a blatant cash-grab loaded with aggressive micro-transactions?

[QUOTE=E1025;53079631]Does anyone really believe this game is going to be anything more than a blatant cash-grab loaded with aggressive micro-transactions?[/QUOTE] I believe it'll be Bioware's funeral anthem.

[quote]As one developer told me, there’s a belief that if Anthem doesn’t live up to EA’s expectations, BioWare will look very different in the future, especially after the disappointment of Mass Effect Andromeda led to EA absorbing BioWare Montreal into the studio EA Motive.[/quote] Considering the main Bioware team basically did the equivalent of torching the franchise with ME3's ending and then left their former multiplayer developer to handle an open-world game all of their own while the main team ran off to make Anthem, it really isn't much of a surprise. No matter how solid a team is, EA got some serious egg on their face in 2017 and Bioware was one of the biggest offenders.

BF2 was such a shit show that I completely forgot about ME:A

[QUOTE=E1025;53079631]Does anyone really believe this game is going to be anything more than a blatant cash-grab loaded with aggressive micro-transactions?[/QUOTE] It looks like a Destiny knockoff so I'd be shocked if it isn't.

If Bioware does get consumed by ea, are there any big studios there left besides DICE and the ea dev teams?

[QUOTE=TheBorealis;53079699]If Bioware does get consumed by ea, are there any big studios there left besides DICE and the ea dev teams?[/QUOTE] It's pretty much DICE, Respawn and Bioware now.

[QUOTE=AbbaDee;53079756]It's pretty much DICE, Respawn and Bioware now.[/QUOTE] And after Titanfall 2 apparently didn't meet EA's expectations and then went quiet in developments mid-to-late last year, I can imagine Respawn has to watch their backs for the dagger too.

[QUOTE=RikohZX;53079758]And after Titanfall 2 apparently didn't meet EA's expectations and then went quiet in developments mid-to-late last year, I can imagine Respawn has to watch their backs for the dagger too.[/QUOTE] Rumor has it the fuckery with Titanfall 2's launch was part of an intentional bid to take over Respawn. Wouldn't surprise me if it were true.

[QUOTE=E1025;53079631]Does anyone really believe this game is going to be anything more than a blatant cash-grab loaded with aggressive micro-transactions?[/QUOTE] The game probably already had horrible micro-transactions in it. I bet only reason they are doing this delay is so they have to remove them after the backlash from battlefront 2.

[QUOTE=RikohZX;53079758]And after Titanfall 2 apparently didn't meet EA's expectations and then went quiet in developments mid-to-late last year, [B]I can imagine Respawn has to watch their backs for the dagger too[/B].[/QUOTE] They do, I have some friends at Respawn and the relationship with EA has always been hostile with the employees being told to never speak to and to completely ignore the EA execs and not give them any info and let Vince Zampella handle them. My friend described Vince Zampella as Kaz with how much vitriol and revenge he wanted to exact upon Activision and IW, he wanted TF|2 to absolutely crush Infinite Warfare and as far as reviews and critical acclaim go, they did. Letting themselves get bought by EA is a textbook case of dealing with the devil and they think they can outmaneuver them. Think about Respawn as the UAC, EA is the dark lord, and money is argent energy. All it takes is one person to fuck it up and open the gates of hell

See yah later. Next time don't get bought by EA.

[QUOTE=TectoImprov;53079637]I believe it'll be Bioware's funeral anthem.[/QUOTE] They should have called the game Dirge instead.

It's a big ambitious open world game, the last thing you want to do is let it out the door undercooked.

[QUOTE=RikohZX;53079758]And after Titanfall 2 apparently didn't meet EA's expectations and then went quiet in developments mid-to-late last year, I can imagine Respawn has to watch their backs for the dagger too.[/QUOTE] Respawn has some time, I expect they'll at least get TF3 out before EA straps them to the bed and starts milking them for all they're worth. Either way though, Vince made a deal with the devil, and there's always hell to pay.

Vince started at EA, if there is anyone who knows how to dance its the Devs at Respawn

People at /r/SWTOR are freaking out about this. Wonder how ongoing services like that will be affected

Rip bioware We'll try to remember the good times.

What's in this article sounds an awful lot like Visceral's final hours to me. - probably not in EA's good graces (Andromeda put Mass Effect on ice) - long dev times (Anthem since 2012) - volatile projects (Dragon Age reboot) - volatile dev team compositions, including executive producers and directors (Casey Hudson, Mike Laidlaw, Mark Darrah) - major Frostbite issues - EA wanting to shove "game as service" elements into singleplayer game (Dragon Age) At least studio confidence in Anthem seems to have improved rather than dwindled, so morale may not be as big a factor as in Visceral's case.

You can almost hear papa EA loading the double-barrel shotgun and cleaning the back of the barn in preparation.

[QUOTE=Sgt Doom;53080259]You can almost hear papa EA loading the double-barrel shotgun and cleaning the back of the barn in preparation.[/QUOTE] Is that a raincoat?

[QUOTE=_Maverick_;53080244]Rip bioware We'll try to remember the good times.[/QUOTE] Good times were 10 years ago.

[media]https://twitter.com/CaseyDHudson/status/956498118803185685[/media]

[QUOTE=Sgt Doom;53080259]You can almost hear papa EA loading the double-barrel shotgun and cleaning the back of the barn in preparation.[/QUOTE] I'm assuming someone is gonna edit that picture with the mountain of devs corpses again but with Bioware getting shot this time. How many studios have they managed to murder at this point?

[QUOTE=AbbaDee;53080326][media]https://twitter.com/CaseyDHudson/status/956498118803185685[/media][/QUOTE] Yeah, it's Dragon Age I'm really worried about after reading that article. Even though it's changed a lot since Origins, it's kind of Bioware's last bastion of their old companion-filled story-a-thon. Rebooting it to add "live" features sounds terrible, and I hope Casey Hudson is being honest about what that means (it still doesn't sound exactly great - they already do DLC, so what's the difference?)

Hell I'm one of the few people who genuinely loved Inquisition and I still can't feel optimistic about Dragon Age's future.

[QUOTE=jimbobjoe1234;53080516]I'm assuming someone is gonna edit that picture with the mountain of devs corpses again but with Bioware getting shot this time. How many studios have they managed to murder at this point?[/QUOTE] Actually the original version of that image [I]was[/I] about Bioware.

[URL="https://kotaku.com/biowares-anthem-officially-delayed-to-2019-1822565640"]Confirmed.[/URL] [QUOTE]EA said today that BioWare’s Anthem will be out in early 2019, confirming our report last week that the upcoming multiplayer action game will not make it this year. “It’s not a delay,” EA’s Blake Jorgensen told the Wall Street Journal, despite the publisher previously announcing the game for a “fall 2018" release. Merriam-Webster defines “delay” as “the act of postponing, hindering, or causing something to occur more slowly than normal.” [/QUOTE]

[QUOTE=CyclonatorZ;53095366][URL="https://kotaku.com/biowares-anthem-officially-delayed-to-2019-1822565640"]Confirmed.[/URL][/QUOTE] It's a good sign when there's a fib right out of the gate.