Halloween was extra-scary this year for any gamer who still enjoys Anthem, as Chad Robertson, the game’s live service provider, has issued a tweet stating he is leaving BioWare, after fourteen years with the company.
I join as a fan now, and look forward to playing BioWare games for years to come. I'm very excited about the next step of my journey in the game industry and look forward to sharing that soon.
— Chad Robertson (@crobertson_atx) October 31, 2019
This news is just one more blow to the battered and bruised near-corpse that is Anthem, following the game’s move to free-to-play via EA Access in September. Lead producer Ben Irving had already jumped the proverbial ship in August, and Anthem itself has been plagued since its February launch with all manner of issues, running the gamut from terrible class balance to player dissatisfaction with its lackluster loot system.
Before its release, Anthem was prophesied to be the next big thing—a resurgence of sorts for BioWare after the release of Mass Effect: Andromeda, another title that crashed hard into the runway just after launch. However, it wasn’t long after the game went live that players began to express their unhappiness with what Anthem had to offer, citing such issues as Storm javelins being near-useless in the endgame, unstable connectivity, relentless frame drop and stuttering, lack of diverse endgame content, atrocious loot drop rates, and absurd microtransaction prices for simple cosmetics.
As recently as May, Anthem developers including Robertson himself were tweeting their continued support of the game, stating “We remain 100% committed to Anthem,” and Project Director Michael Gamble following up with, “The studio’s support and commitment to Anthem has not changed.” On August 6, the game’s long-promised Cataclysm event went live, and it was only a mere week later that Ben Irving left BioWare, leaving players to speculate how long Anthem could cling to life.
There's been a lot of (incorrect) speculation on this. The studio's support and commitment to anthem HAS. NOT. CHANGED. https://t.co/uxwY3ADPRO
— Michael Gamble (@GambleMike) May 3, 2019
Robertson’s departure may be the final nail in Anthem’s coffin, and is certainly not good news for BioWare itself, as the company continues to struggle to come back from its recent series of blunders. Whether or not it can succeed, nobody knows.
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