Five Missed Opportunities for Anthem
Let’s face it, Anthem has not had the best launch whether you compare it to similar games or not. Here at COGconnected, we scored the game at 60, and though some still considered the game to be fun, it is obvious that Anthem did not live up to expectations. Where did Anthem go wrong? We look at some of the missed opportunities that Anthem had.
Release Date?
Some of the issues surrounding Anthem have been apparent even ahead of the game’s launch. While many games other than Anthem has had segmented launches depending on the edition or even platform of the game, EA decided to release a chart to explain when players would be able to play. Depending on the platform and subscription service a player had access to, players would be able to play at different times (some for only 10 hours until the official launch). While figuring out when Anthem actually released for you wasn’t hard, this chart allowed for many to take shots at the game for needing a chart to explain the differences. Looking back at it, different release dates have been around for a while, but the chart exacerbated the issue to the point that perhaps a sole release date would have been best.
Technical Issues
Speaking to the point above, a segmented launch does allow for the developers to fix various issues of the game as they arise. This was the case for Anthem, which had a day one patch for players to be deployed on the day in which all players were given access to the game. The only problem with that is that many players had already experienced a significant portion of the launch content. While a private and public demo helped in terms of network issues, BioWare should have had enough internal data to determine ahead of time what issues had to be resolved. More recently, reports have come out regarding Anthem crashes on the PS4. Being developed by BioWare, a well-respected developer, and published (and owned) by Electronic Arts, one of the biggest gaming companies in the world, you would hope that these issues would not be present. While these things do happen, it certainly does not help Anthem’s current public perception.