For all intents and purposes, EA is known for their mass-scale, ambitious projects, yet for every challenge that comes through tricky game design, it becomes harder to create a technically sound experience. Throughout Anthem’s now-released demo, players have come to understand this fully, and EA has assured us that Anthem’s development still has a long road ahead of itself.
It was not long after Anthem’s demo was originally released that fans were quick to point out that the experience was far from fluid, yet after a lengthy update, EA assured its fans that drastic issues had since been resolved – except, they hadn’t.
As of today, just 24 hours shy of this seemingly game-fixing update, EA’s support site states that “We are continuing to track current issues for the Anthem VIP Demo and the team is working very diligently to quickly resolve them,” These issues of course include the infamous infinite loading screen and the inability to get past the initial title screen.
EA has also stated that as of current, they have already fixed some minor issues with Anthem’s experience, more specifically the team “Identified problems in our infrastructure that were causing some rubber banding. We have already made changes to our back end to improve the performance and will continue to do so over this weekend.”
Bioware’s Chafe’s Robertson, responsible for live services has also joined in on the comments, stating that Friday was “rocky” while also addressing a few comments the community had to offer: “We’ve been testing the entire game and platform for several months, but there were a few things we missed; real-world play frequently leads to unexpected issues. Before I share details on this and what we’re facing, I want to dispel one comment we’ve seen: that we under-planned for server capacity. To ensure stability, we intended to manage our servers to match the player population as it grew. Overall, we had excess capacity prepared for population increases, and continue to do so. That said, what’s important is that all parts of the game work as designed to meet players’ needs, and that did not happen in the opening hours.”
Some players came to appreciate the transparency offered by Bioware on the issue, with Twitter user @BlazeofCory saying “awesome transparency! Anthem’s live service couldn’t be in better hands.” But some players on the other hand, haven’t been so surprised, and have taken Anthem’s VIP demo’s issues as sure sign of the game’s eventual failure: “The fact that you about knew the issues before demo launch and still went through with it, is irresponsible. Especially, to everyone who preordered the game. I’m glad I was able to get a refund. I can see that you guys are aware of issues and still launch half assed games.” Says user @Syringo81.
Anthem is a an online multiplayer action role-playing game that takes place in the futuristic future. For those who have already preordered the game, the VIP demo is now live and can be accessed on Xbox One, PlayStation 4 and PC.
