BioWare’s troubled sci-fi shooter Anthem is back in the spotlight after a former lead producer labeled its signature flight mechanic “proof of the dysfunction” that shaped the project. In a recent interview, the developer said flying—celebrated in early trailers and demos—became “Anthem’s worst feature” once cascading design issues emerged, from combat balance to world layout. The candid comments add fresh detail to a well-documented saga of shifting direction, leadership turnover, and technical strain that culminated in a rocky 2019 launch and the eventual cancellation of an overhaul.
Flight as Emblem of Dysfunction
According to the producer, vertical freedom was embraced for its “wow” factor without fully pricing its systemic costs. Early playtests of fast, 360-degree traversal thrilled audiences, but internally it forced repeated reworks:
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Encounter erosion: Players could bypass combat funnels, forcing designers to inflate enemy health or add leashing.
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Weapon and ability distortion: Altitude advantages pushed balance toward homing or AoE attacks, dulling class identity.
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Environment strain: Streaming budgets, AI pathing, and world readability buckled under freeform movement.
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Tech pressure: High-speed traversal stressed netcode, replication, and cinematic triggers.
The producer argued that Anthem lacked hard constraints or milestone gates to validate the mechanic under real mission conditions—spectacle took precedence over sustainability.
How Flight Undercut Combat and World Design
Unrestricted flight let players rise above intended lines of sight, trivializing cover, flanking routes, and pacing. Designers either ignored exploits—making encounters trivial—or retaliated with frustrating anti-air fixes. As a result, difficulty spiked unpredictably and role identity blurred. Aerial safety reset attrition mechanics like health and cooldowns, eroding tension meant to sustain firefights. Vertical freedom also broke environmental cues: landmarks flattened, audio telegraphs desynced, and resource pressure vanished when players disengaged mid-battle.
Pipeline Failures and Engine Constraints
The interview highlighted governance gaps: authority was diffused across teams, prototypes were judged on “feel” rather than metrics, and specs lagged behind pivots. The Frostbite engine’s streaming and networking limits compounded problems—QA, scripting, and cinematics broke when players entered scenes from unintended angles or speeds. By the time red flags surfaced, schedules and politics made course corrections expensive, leading to band-aid fixes like fog walls and tougher leashing rather than systemic redesign.
Lessons for Future Projects
To avoid repeating Anthem’s mistakes, the producer recommended:
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Codify pillars and limits early—altitude caps, stamina budgets, and line-of-sight occlusion defined up front.
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Cross-discipline sign-off—AI, level design, network, and VFX must all cost features before approval.
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Validate with consequence metrics—not just demo “feel” but combat stability, defect backlog, and performance budgets.
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Let spectacle be an outcome, not the goal—systems should naturally earn wow moments rather than bend around them.
// Source: PC Gamer
