Anthem (Bioware's new property)

And depending on Anthem's reception most likely as well. Which is bizarre.

I like the look but it needs to really punch to grab the crowd from Destiny / Warframe / MH. Hell, Fortnite / PUBG are its main competitors now, really. It's Tribes but slightly more PVE from what I can tell...

I did think it was weird that they were originally going to release it so soon after Destiny 2. Part of me hopes they're looking at all the things Destiny 2 is doing wrong, and reworking things based on that... though that implies they were making the same errors to begin with.

Hindsight says that releasing it so soon after Destiny 2 would have been a great idea. It was a hubristic idea at the time, mind you, due to the complex marketing politics surrounding a knockoff. It's something a lot of developers, filmmakers, etc. like to do when they're drunk on their own hype: Take a thing that's clearly in direct competition with another thing and release it adjacent to that thing, as if to say, "Hey guys? You liked Hero Man: The Game? Well, come check out OUR take on it, which is a million times better than theirs."

Kind of like how Marvel stuck Captain America: Civil War right next to Batman v. Superman and was like, "Hey DC? It's on. Let's see which movie our fans REALLY want to see." And then DC blinked and moved Batman v. Superman away from Civil War so as to avoid losing that battle.

But given Destiny 2's initial success, it makes sense for EA to blink and go, "Okay, maybe we don't want to be idiots and throw our giant, throbbing name recognition around in this case. Let's give it some time for the excitement to die down and the playerbase to get antsy for a new Destiny experience, and then come out with our Destiny."

But that's actually a bad decision because of Destiny 2's recent controversies. If they could get Anthem out the gates soon, they could swoop in and snatch up all the pissed off Destiny 2 players who like the idea of Destiny but are abandoning ship on Activision's bullshit. "Hey, you like Destiny? Well our Destiny isn't doing that shit, so come check it out!"

But, of course, that would require EA's Destiny to legitimately not be doing that shit and we all know that won't happen so this opportunity will remain missed.

edited 31st Jan '18 11:44:55 AM by TobiasDrake

Considering the game has development troubles & the devs have explicitly stated a 2018 release window was unfeasible...... yeah it most likely would have been shit if it was released sooner.

Hope we get a little gameplay trailer soon at least.

Yeah, a podcast I just listened to mentioned development hell and the 2018 release being unfeasible too, but that was the first I heard of any of that.

And yeah, had Anthem been Destiny without the bullshit, a spring release would have been just the ticket probably (I'm pretty sure I remember the date announced at E3 being Q1 2018), but yeah, that would depend on EA not being the shitlords they're known for being.

When EA and microtransactions comes up though, I always feel obligated to mention that I think Titanfall 2 had a pretty reasonable microtransaction/content release model (no loot crates, free content updates every couple of months, all paid content is cosmetic ^note I think some have argued that it's becoming pay-to-win, certain skins provide EXP bonuses, but I don't think that 'higher level' weapons in that game are necessarily better).

Honestly the very idea of this game seems flawed to me. Gameplay has never been Bio Ware's strong point so a game that (apparently) is primarily being sold on its gameplay doesn't inspire confidence.

It's not as terrible of a concept as it might seem on its face. Back before Destiny 2 gave players a whole host of new shitty practices to be upset about, the main criticism of Destiny was that the story felt bolted on and lackluster.

Consequentially, "What if we made Destiny but had the story and characters designed by Bioware?" is a pretty killer idea on paper. For pretty much the same reason that "What if we made Skyrim but had the story and characters designed by Bioware?" was.

However, if there's anything to take away from Dragon Age Inquisition and Mass Effect Andromeda, it should be that Bioware's particular style doesn't always mesh with every type of game design, especially those not originally conceived to be party-based story-driven RPGs. The Skyrim parts of Bioware's Skyrim games were woefully lackluster and only served to bog down the rest of them.

Anthem's solution appears to be having Bioware's Destiny be more Destiny and less Bioware than Bioware's Skyrim was. Time will tell if that's a good decision but initial impressions are not so good.

There's no indication whatsoever that the story will be built up any more than Destiny right now, besides the fact that Bioware's working on it. That's the main reason everyone's so apprehensive about the game.

Really my question is why they chose Bioware for this. I can understand why EA wants their own Destiny but they couldn't get a company who has more experience with games like that?

For the same reason they made the decisions that led to Mass Effect Andromeda, probably.

These developmental issues certainly explains why the last Anthem news we had was that stupid ass corn maze.

I can see the marketing team now: "Gosh. Why didn't this game sell??? Did they not get the corn maze that we put up 3 years ago??? Jimmy worked so hard on setting that up! That should have been enough marketing!"

The whole 'Destiny' aspect could entirely be a production note from EA during the initial pitch before development really started. Thus Bioware wouldn't be saying 'We want to make Destiny' but EA greenlighting it with that stipulation.

I don't want to hate on the idea of Bioware trying new gameplay concepts because they desperately need to get better with their gameplay, but I worry about marketing and even building a game that will probably live or die by its gameplay and not even try to sell story or characters.

I'm especially worried that we're, say, a year out from development and we don't have any character or plot to latch onto for interest where Inquisition and Andromeda at least used Shepard and Morrigan and other characters to market the entire first trailers with no gameplay to be seen in either.

Yeah, it's interesting. I wouldn't consider Bioware's gameplay terrible (or even a weak point), but a game selling based on almost nothing but gameplay? Why would use ever use the Bioware name for that?

If it's not filled with lore, world building and character interactions the Bioware name serves no purpose.

They really should have had a better showing with that first trailer.

Cause seriously it makes sees, having powered armor that flies like Iron Man in a massive open-death world is inexplicably awesome.

But it was a weak showing all around, very shallow. Like the gunplay for one looks clunky & honestly unfitting for the power armor. I think it be cooler if the weaponry were more integrated into the armor.

Cooler, but harder asset wise. If the weapons are tied to armor, than every armor has to have its own resources. Armor and weapons being separate means that the animations can be more universal.

New cinematic trailer.

No actual news that I've seen.

So, Borderlands but prettier.

Feb 22 2019 release date.

I was about to come back with the release date, just caught that bit of the presentation (not that I'll be watching the rest, I'll get the highlights later).

Never played Borderlands, but I have played Destiny, so I get more of that kind of vibe from it, to the point where it actually seems a bit derivative.

edited 9th Jun '18 12:21:19 PM by artfulscruff

More like Borderlands but without the madcap insanity & bazzilion guns.

Or open-world Destiny.

edited 9th Jun '18 12:21:09 PM by slimcoder

I'll probably get this at launch, finish the main story, and then drop it unless it impresses me enough to come back for future content updates or expansions.

It's way too early to be making that kind of decision, I think :P

8 months of dev time to go. They have the pretty Frostbite graphics, but Bioware + shooter = ???

At least they can focus on content for a good chunk of that time.

We have literally nothing to go on story, character, or even RPG wise???

That's REALLY not comforting guys. This is the last major event to show everything off. To get people kicking. And we have nothing?

Oh no...

Irrose plans better than you, me, everyone else here and there is no reason to tell them to disregard that talent!

It's pretty amusing all things considered.

We just got some bare facts like the general setting, that some of the suits are an all-rounder & another is a heavy hitter, & that we can color our suits however we want.

But nothing really in depth like how the skills or guns work.

Said a lot but showed very little.

edited 9th Jun '18 2:19:58 PM by slimcoder