“Baldur’s Gate II set the model, and I obviously loved that model,” says James Ohlen. “But there were a ton of people at BioWare who didn’t like it.” During leadership meetings over the course of the Canadian designer’s 22 years at the RPG studio, he’d sometimes feel totally outnumbered when talking about the importance of story. “Game developers don’t get into the industry to create stories, they get into the industry to create games,” he says. “And so there’s this conflict between game developers and story - my entire career it's been a constant fight.”
Ohlen picked his side early. He was telling BioWare stories even before he joined the company. The meeting of Minsc and Boo, one of the most enduring partnerships in PC gaming, came about in a tabletop Dungeons & Dragons game he ran as a teenager. Then a comic book store manager, he took advantage of his premises to guide no fewer than three concurrent D&D groups through their campaigns. “I didn’t really have much of a life outside of Dungeons & Dragons,” he says.
]]>Like most people, I had assumed EA shut down Anthem soon after dashing BioWare's hopes to overhaul and revive the sci-fi looter-shooter. I was surprised to see Anthem on Game Pass while poking around checking out space games which are not Starfield. It did shut down, didn't it? Surely it did. So why's it on Game Pass? If an 80GB download is the price I pay for a ha-ha-hilarious joke post where I review a spinning loading ball or server error message, so be it. Let's go. Wait. Hang on. I'm playing this. This is a game. This is still a game!
]]>There comes a point, regardless of your interest in a particular video game, where you can't ignore the popular one. Valheim has been dominating the charts since it came out last month, so I recently decided to jump in and see what all the fuss was about. And, after a couple of hours, it seems the fuss relates to that sense of accomplishment after you've constructed a terrible house. At least that's my experience with it.
]]>I suspect we all saw this coming when it was reported earlier this month that Electronic Arts would be deciding the fate of BioWare's sci-fi romp Anthem. BioWare have announced today that they will no longer be working on their overhaul called Anthem Next and will instead be focusing their attention on the next Mass Effect and Dragon Age 4.
]]>Oh Anthem. The only BioWare game even I can't defend. BioWare's attempt at a Destiny-style online multiplayer game crashed and burned when it launched back in 2019, and the developers have made an effort to reboot and improve it ever since. In May last year, they announced Anthem Next, which sounds like its biggest overhaul yet. But now even Next's future is uncertain. A new report claims BioWare's parent company, Electronic Arts, will decide this week whether or not it's worth trying to revive Anthem at all.
]]>Oh dang, they're really giving this Anthem comeback a proper shot aren't they? 3 months after we last checked in with BioWare's beleaguered loot 'em up, the studio has returned with a fresh look at the game's revamped UI, along with a new approach towards character skills and robot-suit loadouts aimed at fixing the base game's seemingly-limited build options.
]]>As promised, BioWare are starting to publish updates as they rethink their not-so-well-received online sci-fi shooter Anthem. Today's update specifically talks about their goals for the loot system, which they want to be more reliable and respect a player's time. It doesn't sound like anything is set in stone yet, so this will definitely be a lengthy journey for Anthem as they previously estimated.
]]>Things have been quiet in Anthem land ever since BioWare confirmed that they were reinventing the ill-received sci-fi game. BioWare want to break their silence on Anthem NEXT and start sharing more, but don't want you to hold your breath. "Spoiler – this is going to be a longer process," says studio director Christian Dailey.
]]>There's no question that Anthem's had a tough run so far. Tough enough that you might imagine BioWare would let it rot at the base of the family tree while turning back to its other established series. A rumor last year suggested that BioWare would stick it out and attempt to put a shine on the new futuristic FPS universe. General manager Casey Hudson confirmed today that BioWare are indeed overhauling Anthem and intend to "reinvent the core gameplay loop."
]]>You'd be forgiven for thinking that BioWare are leaving Anthem to slowly rot, considering Fort Tarsis is filled with bones, and there has been little in the way of new content outside of the recent Halloween event, Season of Skulls. But a new rumour now suggests that BioWare are planning a revival. Much more than the upcoming Christmas event, Icetide, and more akin to "a game-changing expansion like Destiny's critically acclaimed Taken King," sources close to BioWare have described the update as Anthem 2.0 or Anthem Next. A report from Kotaku claims that the update will completely overhaul the game, bringing it more in line with player desires.
]]>HDR on PC hasn't improved much in 2019. Despite there being more HDR gaming monitors than ever before, the very best gaming monitors for HDR continue to be quite expensive compared to non-HDR monitors, and the situation around Windows 10 support for it is still a bit of a mess. However, provided you're willing to fight through all that, then the next step on your path to high dynamic range glory is to get an HDR compatible graphics card.
Below, you'll find a complete list of all the Nvidia and AMD graphics cards that have built-in support for HDR, as well as everything you need to know about getting one that also supports Nvidia and AMD's own HDR standards, G-Sync Ultimate and FreeSync 2. I've also put together a list of all the PC games that support HDR as well, so you know exactly which PC games you can start playing in high dynamic range.
]]>Electronic Arts are returning to Steam after a long hiatus. The first game to come over to the dark side is, appropriately enough, Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order on November 15. It'll be followed by the EA big guns of FIFA 20, Battlefield V, and more next year. And they're bringing their subscription service, EA Origin Access, which is a real surprise.
]]>Troubled looter-shooter Anthem has rolled out its first major post-release update today. Despite adding a new post-story Stronghold mission to complete, the centrepiece of this update is undoubtedly a quality-of-life fix: Players no longer have to return to base to change equipment. Improvements like this seem to be order of the day for patch 1.1.0, as BioWare plug up the worst of the wounds after the game's critically skewered launch. You can see the full patch notes here, or a summary below, along with our original video review to compare and contrast against.
]]>Yesterday Kotaku's Jason Schreier dropped one of his explosive articles upon the gaming industry, this time revealing the sad, grim tale of how BioWare's Anthem came to be. It was, as has come to be expected from Kotaku's investigative exposés, a meticulously researched and cited piece that step-by-step broke down the maudlin development of Anthem, from the perspective of nineteen current and former BioWare employees, and purportedly the wider development team.
Within fifteen minutes of publication, BioWare had posted their response. And it is a bad one. A very bad one, for some very serious reasons.
]]>After playing nearly twenty hours, it's hard to shake the sense that Anthem's development was messier than BioWare might have liked. Today's report by Kotaku's Jason Schreier, talking to former developers, confirms many suspicions, and doesn't paint a pretty picture of the studio or publisher. There's talk of mismanagement, confusing orders from higher up the corporate ladder and that perennial EA bugbear; gruelling crunch.
In response, BioWare have released their own statement, sidestepping or dismissing much of Kotaku's reporting, but half-heartedly admitting that "there is always room to improve" regarding crunch hours.
]]>Anthem's latest patch seems to have been dropped earlier than expected and makes some sweeping changes to the game, most notably addressing some more loot spawning issues, a few changes to respawn timers, and a few item balance changes to Masterwork/Legendary gear. To that end, we figured it would be good to have a summary of all the more relevant updates for Anthem, so in this guide we will be going over the most recent patch notes for Anthem, how they affect your builds, and other things to keep an eye out for.
]]>BioWare have now officially and intentionally improved loot drop rates in certain Anthem activities, following weeks of griping from players that the looter-shooter is too stingy with the goodies. BioWare had previously unintentionally buffed loot rates twice, at which points players seemed a lot happier grinding for gear, then both times BioWare stepped in to say "Oh whoops that was a bug, sorry, we've fixed it now." Third time's a charm, though the weekend's changes didn't go far enough so BioWare do plan more improvements for the future.
]]>Anthem's best stuff comes in the form of both Masterwork and Legendary ranks. Each one gives a better output of damage and better inscriptions compared to the Epic gear, but they also come with an added bonus effect. These bonus effects can be quite hard to track, especially in-game, so we've compiled all of the Masterwork effects for the weapons, gear, and components in the game. We will also be ranking the Masterwork weapons in the game based on their effects.
]]>Anthem's Javelins are the equivalent of other game's classes. They're wildly different from each other, with some focused on melee attacks or single target abilities, and others that excel with crowd control. This guide goes over the four Javelins, with some general tips for each and all the abilities. It also highlights how to unlock them and how to make their quality as shiny as possible.
]]>With the game changing on a near constant basis, it's a little tough to keep track of just what has happened since Anthem's release. To that end, we figured it would be good to have a summary of all the more relevant updates for Anthem, so in this guide we will be going over the most recent patch notes for Anthem, how they affect your builds, and other things to keep an eye out for.
]]>Remember that strider from the previous Freelancer mission? Apparently it never arrived at its destination. Something is very fishy about the whole situation and Yarrow wants you to find out exactly what's happened. Chances are though, he's not going to like what you'll have to report.
]]>Yarrow has a big favour to ask of you. He wants you to check up on some memorials of fallen Freelancers, while at the same time fending off any pillaging outlaws seeking to obtain their equipment. This guide will go over the entire mission from beginning to end.
]]>Reports have come in about a broken down strider, with precious cargo and a freelancer needing your help getting it back up and running. As the helpful freelancer that you are, you are tasked to find the stranded strider and bring it the resources it needs to work once more. All the while, there are plenty of enemies converging on its position that need fending off.
]]>The first of three Stronghold missions has you navigate some caverns to stop some relics and other nasty devices from going off. Should you make it to the bottom of the cave, you'll find a monstrously sized surprise in the form of the Swarm Tyrant. It's a fantastic place to farm loot at the endgame in Grandmaster level 1 difficulty. This guide will go through the entire mission, including strategies to defeat the boss.
]]>Anthem's Tomb of the Legionnaires freeplay quest is one of the more tedious parts of the main campaign. It requires you to complete a lot of challenges, the most annoying of which asking you to find a bunch of chests dotted around the map. So to get you further into the game with as little hassle as possible, this guide will go over the treasure chests locations, and explain the best ways to complete the rest of the challenges.
]]>“Truth is the first casualty of first-person shooters,” said the philosopher Ian Videogames. Time has proven him correct. Not a game is developed without some use of smoke and/or mirror. But this week on the RPS podcast, the Electronic Wireless Show, we shall not be lying to you. We are journalists and we stand for the Truth with a big 'T'. No more tricksy use of code and polygon, we say. No more lying!
Unless it makes us go really, really fast.
]]>Brin has another mission for you. This time around it is to bring back online some beacons that have been inactive for a while. Doing so will bring some bad news about the local Scars, so this guide will go over all the relevant intel for the mission, before things get worse.
]]>Brin's next task for you she claims is but an easy errand. Some Arcanists researchers are looking into a Shaper relic, while the Sentinels are guarding them. Things quickly go wrong though and it's up to you to pick up the pieces and ensure the Shaper relic doesn't fall into the wrong hands.
]]>Matthias of the Arcanists has a hunch about some Elysian manuscript. He now wants you to go out into the field to recover it, following the clues that will lead you to its resting place. The manuscript is well defended however and it will take a full group of you to come back alive.
]]>Strongholds in Anthem are essentially raids in other MMORPGs. You'll bring a full team of Freelancers and journey into the belly of the beast - dungeons full of enemies to kill, with a series of objectives to accomplish before facing off against one of the major bosses. These are by far the biggest challenges in Anthem, so this guide will give you an overview of how best to prepare, before outlining what exactly a Stronghold mission entails.
]]>Hello, it’s me, the resident BioLiker, here to tell you wot I think of Anthem, a game about which you probably already have opinions, whether you’ve played it or not.
Anthem is a shoot 'n' loot online game where you, a hero mercenary with a special mech suit, and a squad of matchmade or real life buddies save a lush alien world from certain alien doom. It is, basically, EA's go at doing a Destiny game-as-a-service game, but they used BioWare to do it, so a lot of people are already upset it isn't a new Mass Effect game, even though it was never meant to be. Like football, or rugby, or indeed anything with a half-time interval, Anthem is a game of two halves. To guess which one I liked more, ask yourself the following question:
When was the last time someone said ‘my favourite bit of a BioWare game is the combat’?
]]>The big thing to get used to about Anthem is the constant need to craft and levelling up blueprints. The better your ability to create a certain weapon or gear type, the better your overall gear will be and the easier it will be to kill enemies. You'll need Embers as you progress through the game, and our guide on crafting in Anthem will go over how to gather materials, levelling up your blueprints, and why inscriptions are a big thing to take into consideration when making your gear.
]]>If you were zapping around Anthem over the weekend and felt a patch had made loot drops stingier, well, it did - but only because a bug had briefly made BioWare's looter-shooter more generous than intended. Oops. While BioWare are still patching away to fix problems since Friday's official launch (and its unofficial "early access" launch a week earlier), they're also opening up about longer-term plans for content updates. Three big blasts (or 'Acts', to use the official term) are due across the next three months, with the first hitting in March. Like other recent EA games, they seem to be in it for the long-ish haul.
]]>Tassyn has a lead, but says that you're going to need some backup. That backup, your avatar thinks, should be your old friends from back in the Heart of Rage incident. You've grown apart since then, but it's time to get the party back together. Here is the intel on how to get inside the camp.
]]>Anthem's Day One (minus two) patch has finally arrived, with one of the big 'High Level' fixes being its atrocious loading times, specifically when it comes to what Bioware refer to as 'older disk drives'. But how much have they actually improved by? Well, I've gone and re-tested the same HDD, SSD and NVMe SSD I tried on Tuesday to see what's what.
]]>BioWare's latest game is monumental in scope, meaning that completing the missions can be quite a slog. But like any Cypher worth their salt, we're here to give you all the intel you need to complete the missions in Anthem, from the story-based missions, down to the smaller objectives given by the three factions. Let's get cracking.
]]>While Arcanists will take any help they can get, Sentinels are much more wary about obtaining help from the Freelancers. They see them as unreliable mercenaries only interested in glory. Brin - one of the more junior Sentinels, wants you to investigate a reported Scar presence at a nearby Arcanist base. This one is a nice and short mission considering the complexity of the story missions thus far, but is required to be completed in order to progress the story.
]]>Perhaps having a little too much curiosity for knowledge, Matthias wants you to investigate some recently discovered ancient runes. Naturally, there are some creepy creatures that would rather you left the runes alone, but you're in it for the reputation. Besides, Tassyn is likely still working out the next move so it's not like you have much of a choice.
]]>Freelancer Yarrow will ask you to aid a fellow Freelancer named Rythe with escorting some Arcanists. Missions with Arcanists don't tend to go well since they're rather interfering busybodies, so lo and behold, they've angered some Scar. Your job is to protect the Arcanists as best as you can, while at the same time driving off the Scar attack.
]]>While Anthem technically doesn't launch until tomorrow, and has been out since last Friday for Origin Access subscribers, the "Day 1 Patch" hit BioWare's sci-fi looter-shooter overnight. It aims to address many of the technical troubles which have been evident in the test weekends and early access, which include long loading times, crashes, freezes, bugs impeding quest progress, and some--but not all--of the other problems Alice Bee has talked about. If you've been put off by what you've seen or played, voila, here's what's in the fixtank.
]]>I was forming opinions about Anthem, EA's jetpacks-and-loot Destinylike, when they said that they’re dropping a big ‘day one’ update before the 22nd that supposedly changes and/or fixes a load of things. It’s downloading as I write this, making it technically a day one minus two patch, but it still bloody well say day one patch in the notes. I’m sure Origin Premier users feel catered to.
Calling this a day one update is a bit of a cheat. A sleight of hand so you won’t see that, tucked back up his sleeve, the magician is hiding a game that’s been out for a week already. If you didn’t know, you can pay EA £15 a month to get 'Premier' access on Origin, which grants you access to some games for free and some bonus content in their new games. And, in this case, you got Anthem a week earlier than the scum who don’t subscribe. This was not sold as early access. This was supposed to have been the finished article. So while I’m going to review the game with the patch included, I don’t want to let the state of the game for Premier users, who I would expect to be EA’s most valued customers, go unremarked upon by, well, me.
]]>Tassyn now would like you to find a Regulator that's gone missing. What begins as a rather routine mission unearths a shocking discovery: The Dominion have returned and in great numbers. The squad you find are led by "The Monitor" - and you need to take him down.
]]>Anthem's Fort Tarsis has quite the number of people to talk to, but only one wants to unleash the decorative potential of your Javelin. All he needs you to do first is to find three Embers, any Embers really, and bring them to him. This guide will tell you just how to do that.
]]>Tassyn has given you your third task in Anthem - to locate the Arcanist Matthias Sumner. This mission is also the first mission in the game that you can do cooperatively with other real players. This guide will go over the steps in order to find and recover the Arcanist, before it's too late.
]]>After that rather disastrous outcome, Anthem's second mission begins immediately and introduces us to Owen - your character's designated Cypher. He's adorable, but his mind is definitely set on being a Freelancer. We'll guide you through this second mission, giving you advanced warning of the stuff to come - including a cataclysm event you must stop.
]]>Anthem throws you into the deep end by having you take on the threat to the Heart of Rage - what is the catalyst for the Critical Objective missions in Anthem. This mission does serve as the game's tutorial, but we'll also provide intel on what you need to do to finish this mission relatively unscathed.
]]>Anthem doesn't technically come out until February 22, but those who pre-ordered the game have been jumping around Bioware's futuristic Iron Man fantasy since Friday - or at least some of them have, as a lot of people haven't been able to get past the game's interminably long loading screens. Indeed, sometimes the game takes so long to load that you're too far behind the rest of your party and are then booted into yet another loading screen so you can catch them up. It's an endless cycle of waiting and irritated foot-tapping, and it's left a lot of people a bit miffed, to say the least.
At least Bioware are aware of the problem, with lead producer Mike Gamble acknowledging on Twitter that HDDs spinning at 5400rpm and 7200rpm are suffering particularly badly, and that there's a Day One patch coming that will hopefully fix it. In the mean time, several other would-be Freelancers have found solace in moving the game to their SSD, so I thought I'd do a bit of testing to see how much time you're actually saving in the process. If you've ever wanted to see what Anthem's loading times look like on an HDD, SSD and an NVMe SSD, read on.
]]>Alice is on holiday, so this week it's me, Alice, filling in for Alice. We're deep in the trenches now, the game trenches, the February onslaught of releases. Metro is only just in our rear view mirror, and Brendan is almost a broken man. Anthem is in its bizarre week of early release for people who'll pay for EA's special version of Origins. Apelegs is taking the Battles Royales by storm. There is too much to do, so I might not remind people to send me what they're playing, just so I don't have to put it in this document, because I am busy playing some of the games that we have to play. I know, what a ridiculous thing to moan about, hey?
What are you playing this weekend? Here's what we're clicking on!
]]>Anthem is out now, kinda-sorta - assuming you've got an Origin Access subscription. While the game fully debuts on February 22nd, subscribers can play now. Those with the cheap Basic subscription get a ten-hour trial, while Premier subscribers have been set loose on the full game. I'm also happy to say that some issues in the first hour or two aside, the servers appear to be holding up well for people playing the power-armoured loot n' shooter. BioWare have also partly unveiled their first major update for the game, including a big space-storm to wrangle.
]]>The first thing I did after watching Conviction, the Anthem 'story' directed by District 9 and Chappie fella Neill Blomkamp, was to check it wasn't just a trailer for Conviction, the Anthem 'story' directed by District 9 and Chappie fella Neill Blomkamp.
It's not. What I would swear blind is but a four-minute trailer for something I might watch on Netflix once I've run out of vintage Star Trek episodes is, in fact, the complete Conviction, the Anthem 'story' directed by District 9 and Chappie fella Neill Blomkamp.
Wow, 'Blomkamp' starts sounding really weird when you type it over and over.
]]>Loadouts in Anthem will be the basis of character progression. Yes there are pilot levels that put a number to it, but it's definitely more of a game where your items indicate just how good you are. This means crafting, and optimising your loadouts, so that they have the best perks for your Javelins. This guide goes over Javelins, the slots that they have, and some details about the item rarities.
]]>Anthem launches next week, or this Friday for Origin Access subscribers. For those stuck waiting until the regular release next week, at least there'll be Anthem: Conviction to watch on February 14th, a free live-action short produced by District 9 director Neill Blomkamp and Oats Studio. Set decades before Bioware's power-armoured shoot n' looter begins, it should be a great special effects showcase, at least. Whatever criticisms you can level at him, you can't deny that Blomkamp knows how to make stompy mech suits look great on film. Below, a teaser trailer giving us a glimpse of metal pyjamas.
]]>With Anthem's open demo now concluded, the next time we'll be able to jump into a Javelin will be when the game is released. Since that last update, we've had another video impression from our video team. We've also been busy creating the foundation for our guides coverage, so this roundup piece will have those, as well as various trailers and details on the game, PC system specs, and more.
]]>As pre-launch demos go, Anthem's VIP demo the other week left a pretty bad taste in everyone's mouth. PC performance issues abounded. Load time were horrendous (if you even managed to get connected to one of the servers, that is), lag times were all over the place, and the frame rate went up and down like a yo-yo.
Happily, Anthem's open demo, which finished yesterday evening, seemed a lot more stable. There were still moments when the frame rate took a bit of a dive (much like my attempts to control my Javelin with its horrendous mouse and keyboard controls), but on the whole I rarely ran into any problems. So, even though it's early and not yet completely final, I thought I'd try a couple of graphics cards on it anyway - Nvidia's GeForce GTX 1050 Ti and RTX 2060 - to see how they performed and what kind of frame rates we might be able to expect come launch day on February 22nd.
]]>Following teething problems with last weekend's invitation-only Anthem trial period, from endless loading to laggy controls, BioWare have explain some of what went wrong and some of what they're doing. They say the full game has already fixed some of the issues players flagged, that this demo is based on an earlier version of their cooperative sci-fi shoot-o-looter, which is good to hear. And it sounds like they'll also fix the demo up a little for the open weekend which starts this Friday, to which we're all invited. So, fingers crossed?
]]>Pre-loading has begun for the Anthem demo weekend, so you can download in advance if you fancy trying BioWare's new cooperative sci-fi shoot-o-RPG. Given that it's a 43.54 gigabyte download, you probably shouldn't wait until the demo weekend starts next week to get that going. Because I'm a total goofus who'll try any game which lets me fly around in a power armour I can customise, I have already started downloading it myself.
]]>New year, old friends. The boys and girls of the RPS podcast have not been reborn, they have no resolutions, no ambitious goal to learn German or eat more spinach. They just want to play more videogames. Unbelievable. So let’s listen to them chat about the shooters and RPGs that have them most excited. That’s what they do on these podcasts, you know, they just talk nonsense. And they get PAID for it. It’s outrageous, if you ask me, a nameless publication byline.
]]>All-flying all-shooting mech RPG Anthem isn’t far off now, and BioWare (via IGN) have shown off an early mission called Lost Arcanist in full. As the name suggests, it’s about finding someone who’s gone missing, and you can watch the crew ping from waypoint to waypoint, shoot some enemies, and see a lot of incredibly beautiful flora and fauna.
You can see the full fifteen minutes of footage below:
]]>Wow 2019 is a thing, huh? How are we all doing? Relieved? Bowling a hangover and a nagging sense of trepidation? Maybe you work in retail and, surprise! You were supposed to be at work half an hour ago. Time loses all meaning post-New Year break, doesn't it? You're just sort of adrift in a sea of empty Quality Street wrappers. That's okay. We're all there too.
Pretty soon the grim news cycle is going to grind to life again. Only three months until -- no! Don't think about it. We still have a moment here, on the crinkly, brightly coloured waves. Listen to their quiet rustling and think, not about reality, but about games! Yes, lovely, shiny games. We can bury our face right in them. And from that point of view the next 12 months are looking pretty good. Here's our selection of the games we're most looking forward to next year.
]]>If you're curious about BioWare's sci-fi shooter RPG Anthem but have no luck with closed alpha invitations, hey, chillax: a three-day open beta is coming in February. EA call this an "open demo" rather than the usual "open beta", but a demo isn't open for only three days several weeks before launch so I'll use the technically-incorrect-but-widely-known term thank you, much to the chagrin of software developers who take terminology seriously.
]]>Do you hear the players sing? Singing a song of angry mech suits It is the music of a people Who'll soon be slaves to shoots When BioWare's Anthem alpha starts On the 8th of next month Sign up now to take part when December comes!
]]>A handful of BioWare developers took to the PAX West stage last night to try to explain Anthem’s balance of singleplayer story and multiplayer action. The hour-long panel focused mainly on the factions and NPCs that your freelancer protagonist will be able to interact with and influence in the open-world action-RPG, including showing the ‘Our World, My Story’ trailer, which you can see below.
]]>With all the coverage that Anthem is getting, you'd be forgiven for forgetting that BioWare had ever developed anything else. Fortunately, they haven't. In their Summer Update dev-blog post, the studio talk about what they've been up to over the past few months, including promoting Anthem art-books and comics at the San Diego Comic-Con. In amidst all this they did find time to let slip that they've got "some teams hidden away" working on projects that Dragon Age and Mass Effect fans may like.
]]>1998's Dungeons & Dragons adaptation Baldur's Gate wasn't BioWare's first game, but it was the one that really made the KOTOR and Mass Effect studio's name. These days they're making shooty-bang games for EA, so it's hard not to feel that Baldur's Gate lead designer James Ohlen parting ways with the uber-studio marks a chapter closing and an new one beginning. D&D is Ohlen's one true love, he claims, and it's to that he's returning - a book publishing venture based on the venerable pen'n'paper RPG.
]]>BioWare took a hunk of Anthem to E3 in June in a gameplay demo, then only showed it behind closed doors to press. But now summer is here, they've flung open the doors to get a breeze going and oh ho! The fools! Now we can walk right in and see that demo for ourselves! No longer must we read our Brendan's impressions of the demo, we can just watch the 19-minute choreographed and narrated demo as Iron Spacemen stomp and fly around an alien jungle, listen to robots say sci-fi words, shoot alien arthropods, and, I quote, "focus on the weak points to cause massive bonus damage."
]]>During yesterday's EA’s press conference for E3 (which seemed at times like an hour-long apology for microtransactions) we saw a bit more of Anthem, the upcoming shooter from BioWare. The sliced-together footage followed a multiplayer run through the jungles and rock-pools of the world, ending when the four "freelancers" in robot suits encountered a large insect who eats cameras. But I’ve been braving the LA sunshine and got to see an unedited (or rather, less-edited) version of the same level. I didn’t get to play it, sadly. But I did get to see what happened to that big insect after the camera cut out. They shot it. A lot.
]]>During today's E3 event, Electronic Arts revealed their new premium subscription tier for Origin Access, called Origin Access Premier. It'll let members play EA's new games as much as they please, including Madden NFL 19, Fifa 19, Battlefield V and, of course, Anthem. A pass to play every big new EA game without buying 'em.
Update: Cleaned up some confusion about what this does. Apologies. EA were a bit vague and it was a heck of a busy Saturday evening. -ed.
]]>BioWare's multiplayer shooter-RPG Anthem will launch on February 22nd, 2019, EA announced during their E3 pressblast today. They also showed off the first big lump of Anthem in action since its announcement at E3 last year, with power armour, robots, spacemen, guns, a Spacebrit, and a big spacebug.
]]>The general manager of BioWare has said that not releasing story DLC for Mass Effect: Andromeda and leaving much-wanted tales untold was "a defining moment in refocusing BioWare's mission", which will inform Anthem. Casey Hudson talked up the importance of story and characters in a 'studio update' blog post yesterday. Given that I've forgotten almost everything I've heard of the action-RPG's story (it's on a spaceplanet and there are mechs and monsters?), I'll take some convincing yet.
]]>Years of growing discontent over loot box monetisation in games came to a head with 2017's Star Wars Battlefront II's lousy loot-based unlock progression system, raising such a stink that governments weighed in on arguments and EA disabled the microtransactions.
"We can shy away from it and pretend like it didn't happen," Patrick Söderlund, EA's new chief design officer, told The Verge, "or we can act responsibly and realise that we made some mistakes, and try to rectify those mistakes and learn from them." He swears blind that they've chosen option B, and they'll try real hard not to guff up games like Anthem and the mysterious next Battlefield.
]]>As rumours predicted, Electronic Arts have delayed BioWare's sci-fi online shooter doodad Anthem into 2019. It was previously slated for autumn of this year. Anthem is BioWare's shiny new persistent-world multiplayer shooter which... given how little they've shown and said about it, let's say it resembles Destiny but with Iron Man armour and more spacejungle. Despite the delay, EA say Anthem is not delayed. It's just that they're holding it back to space it apart from the yet-unannounced new Battlefield game they'll release this year, okay?
]]>While BioWare's new sci-fi persistent open-world multiplayer shooter doodad Anthem is officially due to launch this autumn, several secret sources tell Kotaku that the game is now likely delayed into early 2019. Speaking anonymously (the industry is not remotely fond of leakers, after all), they say that BioWare are shifting almost everyone to focus on Anthem, and... there are more whispers about the game's progress, but they get vaguer. Let's simply say: it seems quite possible we won't get to rocket around an alien planet in BioWare's Iron Man armour this year.
]]>As we lay 2017 to rest, let us remember all of the wonderful games that flickered across our screens and occupied our hearts and minds. But now we must promise never to think of them again because times have changed. This is 2018 and if we've learned one thing from the few hours we've spent in it it's that there are games everywhere. Every firework that exploded in the many midnights of New Year's celebrations was stuffed with games and they were still raining down across the world this morning. We cannot stop them, we cannot contain them, but we can attempt to understand them.
Hundreds of them will be worth our time and attention, but we've selected a few of the ones that excite us most as we prepare for another year of splendid PC gaming. There's something for everyone, from Aunt Maude, the military genius, to merry Ian Rogue, the man who hates permadeath and procedural generation with a passion.
]]>What do you mean there's a whole month of 2017 left? Well, the disembodied mouths of the RPS podcast, the Electronic Wireless Show, are tired of waiting. This week the team look at some of the most exciting upcoming games of 2018. Adam is looking forward to smashing big robots with other, bigger robots in Battletech. Matt wants to make trousers from dinosaur skin in Monster Hunter World. And Brendan forgot all about how much he's excited by surreal isometric detective game No Truce With The Furies.
We've also got some chat about Viking strategy game Northgard and yet more love for FTL follow-up Into The Breach. Plus, our Patch Adam quiz is back!
]]>Former Mass Effect project director Casey Hudson is returning to BioWare to become the studio's general manager, coming back from three years in wandering the desert of Microsoft. He'll replace Aaryn Flynn, who is leaving the studio entirely after seventeen years. Hudson left BioWare in August 2014, after helping lay the foundations of the game that became the Destiny-lookin' action-RPG Anthem. After several games that haven't quite clicked, can Hudson get the studio back on track?
]]>It probably won’t have lightsabers or giant slug mobsters, but BioWare’s upcoming action-RPG, Anthem [official site], is going to be more like Star Wars than Mass Effect. “Science fantasy” is how BioWare Edmonton general manager Aaryn Flynn describes it in a recent radio interview.
]]>Oh my lord, somebody needs to defeat this notorious E3 war machine once and for all. The RPS podcast, the Electronic Wireless Show, have gathered their forces to take on the monster. We'll be tackling all the big news: Beyond Good and Evil 2, Wolfenstein 2, Sea of Thieves, Anthem, Life Is Strange: Before the Storm and lots more. We've so much news to talk about that we've recruited news editor Alice O'Connor to come help us. We've also sent Adam behind enemy lines to Los Angeles, but have only been able to recover a handful of his communiques.
This week's special extra-long episode also features some chat about Alice's murderous efficiency in PlayerUnknown's Battlegrounds, Pip's floundering in Football Manager 2017 and my doomed piloting in Everspace. We also discuss the origin of the name "E3" and discover a patchwork quilt of possible etymologies.
]]>Each year E3 rolls around like a giant evil worm, crushing all that's good and pure. BUT that worm also announces lots of exciting gaming news as it wreaks its carnage upon the Earth. Here we have gathered every announcement, reveal, and exciting new trailer that emerged from the barrage of screamed press conferences over the last few days. And lots of it looks rather spiffy.
A rather enormous 47 PC games were either announced, revealed, or updated upon, with new trailers, information, and released dates that will all be missed by at least three months. We've collected the lot, with trailers, in alphabetical order, into one neat place, just for you.
]]>BioWare's Anthem [official site], the mysterious new game they announced last night but forgot to say anything about, is a Destiny-lookin' action-RPG. It's a "shared-world" shooter with cooperative multiplayer, questing, levelling, looting, and all that. That's the news out of Microsoft's E3 press conference tonight, where BioWare showed the game off in a seven-minute gameplay trailer. Observe:
]]>BioWare have teased their new IP, Anthem [official site], at EA's E3 press conference. We know very little about it, but it'll use the Frostbite engine, it's sci-fi and it involves POWER ARMOUR. Here's the plot, based on what I know from the teaser trailer: Humanity lives behind a great big wall, hiding from MONSTERS, and occasionally nipping out in their supersuits to biff those monsters.
Let's call it Attack On Titanfall then, eh?
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