The lead producer of BioWare’s latest offering Anthem has taken to Reddit to address features which were shown to be in the game during pre-launch marketing but absent in the final product. The response from Ben Irving, lead producer on the game, claims that the sometimes drastic changes are the “cost of transparency,” noting that major changes are common in game development.
The response was prompted by Reddit user TheWalkingDerp_ who created a detailed image post on the Anthem Reddit board that displayed several features missing from the current build of the game. The post uses screenshots of pre-release marketing which include features such as players joining mid-mission, loading screens hidden by animations, and dynamic events in the open world. Elsewhere in the thread, other users have pointed out the disparity in graphics between earlier builds and the current one while other comments inevitably questioned the current string of bugs plaguing the game.
Irving jumped into the thread to try and address the feelings around these changes between builds, citing the cost of transparency as the primary reason behind these noticeable differences. Irving explained that in order for BioWare to be as transparent as possible with audiences during the development process of the game, there would be unavoidable exposure to the constant changes made to a game during production.
“There are a million reasons why you set out with an idea and it evolves over time,” said Irving, noting that these kinds of changes are common in almost every game.
Irving went on to say that in this case, the cost of their desire to be transparent was that some of the things the developer discussed with players during production were removed from the game. While Irving said that BioWare shared as much as it could, he stresses that these changes were not a product of intentional dishonesty but rather a byproduct of a standard development cycle.
