For a phone game, yeah it’s fun. I find the combat to be alittle slow sometimes (i’d like to be able to block faster after swinging) and the chests take way to long to open, but it’s also in early access. Rough edges are to be expected.

A whole bunch of millions of dollars spent on a combat simulator and then player go and ruin it by being nice to each other.

Nah just an edgelord

‘Elves’ could actually make sense as a tiny surviving remnant of FirstCiv - the ones Abstergo was cloning in Syndicate certainly didn’t look human, even if Minerva more-or-less does.

My comment languishing in the greys is about this. Remember Vikings weren’t just in the north Atlantic- they founded the forerunner of Russia and traded down to Constantinople. Maybe our viking character is an elite Varangian guard for the byzantine emperor?

maybe you play as a foreigner in the midst of vikings? Something in the vein of The 13th Warrior...that could afford some stealth play. As far as climbing goes....do we need that? AC has been tired for a while, and I’ve heard Odyssey was a fresh breath of air, but honestly I’m looking for more.

Reckless Prediction:

I am *here* for this. <3

I’d wager that it’s both actually. BioWare definitely had major faults of leadership, and just assuming your product will come together in the end is quite possibly the worst assumption you could ever make. However, EA still forced them to use Frostbite and then left them in the dust with support for Frostbite until…

😅 Thanks for saying that. You’re one the best writers in the industry.

I largely agree. I think there’s also an underlying issue of EA having decided to focus games on long-term monetization, which drives developers away from creating story-focused games - pretty loot sells better in the short term than rewarding narrative or character interactions. Of course, I recognize that games are…

How did anyone besides Mark Darrah get into a leadership position? 6 years of preproduction before anyone actually makes a decision and sticks with it?

It does sound like Bioware Edmonton also was unwilling to accept feedback from a team that worked on online games.

And a strange taboo of talking about what Destiny, their prime competitor and market leader, were doing right or wrong. Unwillingness to learn is a lethal, if not debilitating, ailment.

The most cringey part was reading about interacting with the Frostbite support team.

This article certainly shows that management in Bioware shared in some of the fault, but EA is constantly hanging over everything going on, especially with the mandated use of Frostbite, which is clearly not designed primarily for these sorts of games, and thereby introduces a number of significant hurdles.

I think the same. How easy is to blame EA (not that they are saints by any standard), but only when you deep dive into the problem itself you start realizing the really complex network of issues that actually come together in a catastrophe like Anthem. And a good reminder on how important Leadership, Mission and…

Maybe we all wanted to place the blame on EA because Bioware has so much goodwill from all the good memories they gave us and EA, well, it’s the EA.

It’s largely EA’s responsibility to ensure that those leadership roles are filled. EA, as the owner of BioWare, is responsible for the management of BioWare. A good manager will notice when its charges are floundering and provide the resources needed. EA did not do this to a sufficient degree.