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<img src = "https://cdn.arstechnica.net/wp-content/uploads/2019/04/Screenshot-435-800×461.png" alt = "This" javelin "costume could have been featured in a game called Beyondbut at the last minute, his name was replaced by Anthem. Check out this story and many more in the long Kotaku report of today. "/>
What has become commonplace in recent years, a major story about the problems of video game development – rich in insider sources and production hell – has come about thanks to Jason Schreier, editor-in-chief of Kotaku. In what has also become common in recent years, the article in question concerns an EA game.
BioWare Anthem is the latest in a broad report spanning several years and drawing some conclusions, all trying to explain why the game was delivered as a critical flop. Perhaps the most important thing to remember is that BioWare employees allege that the game production process did not really begin until 12 or 16 months before the game was released.
The Kotaku report explains this chronology by explaining how the pre-production process of the game was marked by indecision and technical headaches. The project was taken from this quagmire after Patrick Söderlund, EA leader, played Anthem demo in December 2016. "This is not what you'd promised me as a game," Söderlund reportedly told BioWare, and the article explains in detail how the original design documents of the game were describing something a little more like a cross between Dark souls and The shadow of the colossuswhere cooperative players would focus less on loot collection and more on teamwork to "see how long you could survive" in brutally challenging and dynamically changing worlds.
This original plan also included promises of Iron Man jetpacks, but for some members of the team, the technical challenges of back-to-back flying made this feature a non-element. However, Söderlund's request to see an improved demo resulted in a six-week crisis period to create something new and impress the boss, which involved the return of the jetpacks. The boss approved the updated demo, which allowed BioWare to take a new path to create a game resembling the demo in question.
"The demo was not built properly, much of it was wrong, like most E3 demos," said a source in Kotaku. "There were a lot of things that were like," Oh, do we really do that, do we have the technology for that, do we have the tools for that, and for what purpose can you steal? What should be the size of the world? " & # 39; "
"Inimitable"
From there, the article breaks down a huge treasure of misfortune. One of these, which was taken up in other behind-the-scenes reports, concerned issues related to the Frostbite graphics engine developed by DICE. "A lot of ideas [BioWare Edmonton] Schreier wrote that a BioWare employee described the engine as the worst of all worlds: "Frostbite is like an internal engine with all the problems it entails, it is poorly documented., Hacked together, etc. – with all the problems of an external source engine. "
The lack of access to Frostbite programmers has not helped. Many of these environmental assessment staff have been assigned to the FIFA team, leaving BioWare in the embarrassment.
The sources quoted are careful to point out that some critical complaints about the retail game (including those of yours) were passed on internally during the development of the game. Among these, there was the battle between feeding the players and grouping them into online playmates, which provoked the disagreement of BioWare's studios in Edmonton and Austin.
"It will not work," said a BioWare Austin developer at the Edmonton team. "Look, these [story] "What you do, it will divide the experience of the players." This developer told Kotaku that Austin's studio concerns were "repeatedly ignored".
Staff turnover, loading screens, terrain problems, unbalanced weapons, internal thrust to make the game "immutable" (as opposed to Mass Effect Andromeda and its viral GIFs), and a directive from the company to ship the game by March 2019: these details and more are described in this must-have feature, which also recognizes AnthemThe technical success and the fact that she crossed the finish line.
In addition, judging by the story, the pressure exerted by EA as a business owner apparently did not yield to the demand for specific types of online transactions. The article contains an allusion to another upcoming behind-the-scenes report, which revolves around Dragon Age 4, but it is not mentioned that surprise EA has launched another major online game, Apex Legends, almost simultaneously.
The story ends with a statement of EA as opposed to answers to Schreier's questions. The company explains with a curious explanation its non-participation in the story: "We felt that some team members and leaders, who were doing their best to bring this totally new idea to the fans, were the subject of unfair attention, being part of something that was trying to shoot them down as individuals. " Schreier points out that this statement was published before his story was published and does not seem to fit his article, which includes very little "focus on specific members of the team and leaders".
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