Casey Hudson, General Manager of BioWare, spoke today about Anthem and the status of the studio in a new post. After recapping the events of E3 2018 and Comic-Con, he talked about how the team was working to address feedback, specifically any concerns regarding the narrative and storytelling in a shared world game. He also announced an Anthem panel to be held at PAX which will further explain the nature of storytelling the game.
Here’s what Casey Hudson had to say:
It’s a great question, and in my opinion our solution to this design challenge is one of the most innovative things about Anthem. We talked briefly at EA PLAY about how the solution is called “Our World, My Story.” In the dynamic open world, everything is experienced in real-time by all Anthem players – day/night, weather, and world-scale events that shape the ongoing narrative of the setting. This is “our world,” which we share as a player community. Then when you return to Fort Tarsis, that’s actually a single-player experience, and it’s where you spend time developing relationships, making choices, and seeing consequences. That’s the “my story” part.
But even with that description I know there are many more questions about how it will work. To really go deep on this subject, we’ll be doing a panel at PAX where we’ll talk about “our world, my story” and other big questions you’ve had about Anthem.
That’s not all though. He also talked about some other BioWare franchises that fans know and love.
In the meantime, our Star Wars: The Old Republic team is hard at work on some amazing plans for the coming year, with new features and surprises that I think makes it the game’s most exciting year yet. And yes – we hear loud and clear the interest in BioWare doing more Dragon Age and Mass Effect, so rest assured that we have some teams hidden away working on some secret stuff that I think you’ll really like – we’re just not ready to talk about any of it for a little while…
I’d recommend caution when reading that statement. Even if this “secret stuff” means full new games, the focus is on Anthem for the time being and it’s going to be a while before we hear anything. Nevertheless, the fact that Casey Hudson acknowledges fans’ love of those franchises is fantastic news, particularly since Mass Effect: Andromeda‘s mixed reception and the subsequent closure of BioWare Montreal.
With a PAX panel coming up soon to help further explain the storytelling style in Anthem, hopefully we’re going to see BioWare deliver on all fronts. I got a chance to see Anthem at E3 2018 and you can read my impressions of what I saw here.
