Anthem is coming and Anthem is a big risk. Currently gamers are heavily polarized about it, but the majority of people don’t seem to think it’s gonna work out, while those that do generally do so with the “I HOPE it works out” attitude.
While this huge gamble is going on though, Casey Hudson gave an interview for the Game informer expressing adamant faith in Anthem and hope that it will allow the company to diversify and make more smaller, more experimental games in the future.
I would like to get to a place where, yes, we’re doing our big next thing, but maybe we’re also kind of doing a few experiments. I want to get to where we can kind of do the equivalent of getting short films out there to people and saying, ‘Hey, we got a bunch of things we want—creative ideas we want to get out. And so try this piece and have a look at this thing.’ And kind of see what people like.
While this is not entirely out of the question as EA does run a program to help budding developers and publishes their games (the excellent A Way Out was a product of this system), which genuinely leads to creation of great titles, it’s important to remember that BioWare is not really a part of that program.
While Jo-Mei is working with EA under the upcoming and promising Sea of Solitude shown at E3, BioWare is actually owned by EA, so the internal process of their relationship is completely different. Which leads me to the next quote, which might be very telling:
I think some of the things that are coming, in the way that we’re doing things in BioWare and the way that EA is working and the industry is going, I think it is starting to afford the opportunity for us to do some things that are more experimental
Now while it’s possible that EA is genuinely giving BioWare the credit of doubt, it’s also possible that when Hudson says “smaller, experimental titles”, he actually means, well, mobile games. I just want to prepare you all for the possibility that Anthem is the very last actual video game that studio produces.