Even Anthem was exciting once. It’s easy to forget now EA has sentenced BioWare’s multiplayer shooter to the gallows, but there was a moment in time where the gaming world watched the reveal of Anthem with bated breath. What we were seeing wasn’t Mass Effect or Dragon Age, these series the studio had clung to for so long, but something brand new. And for a moment, it dazzled. For a moment Anthem looked like the future.
Let me take you back to E3 2017, to an old way of doing things. It’s the E3 we once knew, pre-Pandemic, a show full of bombast, ambition, and huge marketing budgets. We’re on Microsoft’s coveted stage as lights flash and screens project the future of Xbox. We’ve just had a release date for the Xbox One X; the Xbox Series consoles are still a closely guarded secret for now. But it isn’t the biggest announcement of the night. The show will be closed by a game instead – a game EA executive Patrick Soderlund comes onto the stage to introduce.
“New IP is the lifeblood of our industry,” he says, beginning some signature E3 executive waffle. “It’s also risky. At EA, we have teams [spinning] up a lot of projects and only the greatest will make their way to you. And that’s okay, it’s all part of the creative process. And it’s worth it, because when you find something special, there’s no better feeling as a developer than introducing players to a brand new world. And as a player, there’s no better feeling than losing yourself in a completely new experience.
“Our developers at BioWare have been creating something truly special,” he continues. “A huge open world that is lush, savage, mysterious and ever changing, filled with interesting characters and new types of gameplay you’ll enjoy with your friends for years to come.” (I bet he wishes he hadn’t said that.) “This is what’s possible. We take an extraordinary vision and combine it with the latest technologies and hardware. Amazing concepts become possible. Great ideas become reality.”