This is not the game you promised

In particular, the Frostbite engine posed big problems during the development of Anthem.

That the development of Anthem was anything but optimal, we have already described these last days in several articles. The developers were under constant stress, the gameplay originally had to be completely different, and then a few days before the announcement, the name of Anthem was changed.

All this comes from a Jason Schreier report on Kotaku for which he spoke with 19 former hymn developers. There, he also explains where the big problems came from during the development. An obstacle put the internal engine represent.

"Frostbite is full of razor blades"

In 2011, Patrick Söderlund, former director and director of DICE at EA, decided that Build all future EA games on the Frostbite engine originally developed for the Battlefield series. That's why games with a completely different genre like Mbad Effect: Andromeda, FIFA 17 and Anthem are based on the shooting engine.

The big problem: Frostbite is not optimized for role playing or third-person games. As reported by Schreier, the engine already had problems with Dragon Age: Inquisition, lacking basic items like a third-person camera. And even with Anthem, the engine should cause problems.

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Here's How Bioware Can Save Anthem – Video: Outlook on Roadmaps and Patches

The team managed to build huge and pretty levels with Frostbite, but a Do not implement most expected featuresLittle by little, Bioware had to modify planned ideas and prototypes, shorten and give up.

In addition, the operation was very heavy. Bugs that could be solved in other engines in minutes existed in Frostbite for days to weeks. An employee explains:

"It's hard enough to develop a game and it's very difficult to create a game in which you have to fight with your own tools all the time."

Another supplements:

"Frostbite is full of razor blades."

An intolerable prototype

To make matters worse, none of Bioware's developers helped develop the Frostbite engine and completely mastered it. The result: the already stumbling The process of developing the anthem was even slower and continued to come up with new problems.

In 2016, Bioware developed an Anthem prototype for the Christmas season, designed to give employees an idea of ​​the current state of play. This project started in 2012 as Project Dylan. The content was simple: on a farm, you shot aliens.

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The trick of the service game worked – video commentary on Anthem and Co.

Patrick Söderlund also played this demo and considered intolerable"This is not the game you promised me."

Especially the graphics have disappointed. Söderlund then sent high-ranking Bioware employees to DICE in Stockholm to solve problems with the Frostbite engine.

More appearance than to be

In the weeks that followed, the team worked continuously on a new demo, incorporating a feature that made Anthem indispensable: The flightIn the past, the team had added this mechanic several times and then deleted it because it did not feel good. But to convince Söderlund, they saw no other alternative.

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Anthem – PC vs PS4 and Xbox One in the graphic comparison

In the spring of 2017, Söderlund tested the new prototype, this time with enthusiasmThis prototype eventually became the basis of the gameplay trailer presented by EA at E3 2017. Ironically, according to Schreier, not only the players, but also Bioware himself gave an idea of ​​the direction taken by Anthem.

At the E3 2017, EA also announced the release date for Anthem: The loot shooter should appear in the fall of 2018. Who sits Bioware again under pressure: The developers did not implement much of the content by far.

The result: to go out, EA presented a game that did not meet the expectations of many players. The Metacritic rating of the PC version is 58. We also explain in our review of Anthem that the loot shooter in its current state does not work yet.

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Anthem – Bioware Cooperative Shooter Test Video