I'm so torn on Anthem.
I see a ton of things I like, but it doesn't come together as one whole experience,
but I'm also very much enjoying myself and play it every night,
but it also makes me simultaneously worry and hopeful about future Bioware games.
Like,
I like it, but I don't know if I should recommend it to my friends. I really want it to sell well so Bioware's new animation style can find its way into DA or ME, but I'm also worried that if it sells well they'll learn the wrong lessons from it and turn every game they make into a crisis of conflicting personalities.
I feel dread overcoming my Bioware fanboy side.
Well, you don't have to worry about them learning the wrong lessons, because it's not selling well.
Listening to a podcast the other week discussing Anthem, there was a very interesting point brought up: The Division, Anthem, and other loot shooters--"shlooters" if you're evil--(what are the other loot shooters, if any?) are all following the trend that Destiny
was projected to have created, not what it actually created. Because while Destiny sold well, it didn't take the world by storm the way it was hyped to, because Bungie fumbled the ball and never fully recovered, especially after Destiny 2.
MOBAs, battle royales, hero shooters, those are all big trends that took off and received massive critical and commercial acclaim. Destiny wasn't on that level, so it didn't set a real trend, but Ubisoft and EA didn't want to be late to the trend like other companies always are, so they got in early, only to find that it's not that lucrative of a market. On top of that, these games are also much more expensive to make than those other genres/trends.
The only loot-shooter type game that's been relatively successful both critically and commercially is Warframe, and that's because 1) It came out in 2013, sucked, and then spent years rebuilding itself into something much better, and 2) It's
free. If Anthem were a free to play game, the reactions it's getting wouldn't be nearly as malicious.
It's a shame, though, because just the other night I started replaying Mass Effect 3 for the first time in several years, and for all that game's faults and contrivances in its story... man, the general the dialogue, characters, and environments are great. Mass Effect 2 is one of my all-time favorite games, and Mass Effect 3 shows the potential for how high the series could go if all the elements hit their potential.
I'm very curious to hear what the behind-the-scenes story of Anthem is. They say the game has been in development for 6 years, but I'm hedging my bet that it was moreso in development for 3-4 years, and 2 years ago they had to scrap almost everything for one reason or another, and so we're only seeing a couple years' worth of work.