Producer Discusses Anthem Missing Features, 'Cost of Transparency'

You’ve probably seen or heard some of the backlash surrounding the launch of EA’s newest shared world shooter, Anthem. Whether it’s the bugs, technical issues, long loading screens, lack of compelling story, or crashing peoples’ PS4s, the game has had a rocky start. One thing the community has brought up is the list of features that were supposed to have been included, but were absent after the game’s launch. It’s easy to want to criticize the game’s developers, but it’s not necessarily their fault that the game isn’t up to par. The lead producer of Anthem responded to a thread on Reddit, concerning these missing features.

Anthem

Above are some of the features fans were expecting, but were not included. Lead producer, Ben Irvo had this to say:

The short answer is that the cost of transparency is things change. We did our best to be transparent on the journey to going live but with that we knew things would be different in some situations. Sometimes people would be happy and sometimes they would be upset.

It’s the cost of transparency.

Edit: to elaborate – game development is full of change. There are a million reasons why you set out with an idea and it evolves over time. This is common in every game. We shared as much as we could. Some things change. So the cost of transparency is that some things we said become not true, not because someone was dishonest but because it changed over the course of development.

It’s very tough from a developmental standpoint, because EA ultimately will dictate how things play out, since they’re funding it. Sure, Bioware actually makes the game, but they answer to EA, so it’s not always as simple as it seems.

With this, the point is that the developers recognize that there are issues that need to be addressed and are doing their best to be honest with the community. Development is hard and many things do not go according to plan.

It’s good to know that the team is being honest with the fans and hopefully things turn around for Anthem.

[Source: Reddit]