Bioware’s Head of Live Service Chad Robertson has left the company, bringing fresh speculation as to who is in charge of Anthem.
Back in August of this year, Ben Irving (Anthem’s Lead Producer) left the company. Speaking on Twitter at the time, Irving stated the game was in “good hands” with Jesse Anderson (EA’s Global Lead, Core Community), and Andrew Johnson (EA & BioWare’s Global Community Lead). In spite of this, Robertson has become the face of Anthem in Irving’s stead, usually via blog posts on the game’s status and future plans.
On October 31st, Robertson announced his departure from Bioware on Twitter.
“This is my last week with BioWare. I’ve been with the company for 14 years and am grateful for everything I’ve been part of here. SW:TOR, Anthem, the Austin studio, and BioWare are in good hands; you can expect great things ahead.
I join as a fan now, and look forward to playing BioWare games for years to come. I’m very excited about the next step of my journey in the game industry and look forward to sharing that soon.”
Several individuals have begun to speculate that Anthem no longer has anyone “in charge”. Forbes‘ Paul Tassi states:
“I have no idea who is running what remains of Anthem, if anyone. Robertson was clearly in charge in some capacity after Irving left, but I have no idea what’s happening now. Jesse Anderson, community lead, recently got a new role but he confirmed that he’s still working on Anthem too. I asked him who was running the Anthem show right now in the wake of Robertson’s departure, but I haven’t heard back yet.”
Anthem met middling scores by critics, and poor scores by users (1, 2, 3), citing the title’s story and gameplay being generic, having a lack of content, long loading times, bugs (including the game’s starting rifle becoming the most powerful weapon in the game), and delaying and cancelled upcoming features and events promised in marketing. This was also combined with ongoing resentment for EA for numerous anti-consumer practices.
EA CEO Andrew Wilson stated “The launch of Anthem did not meet our expectations,” though the company was committed to improving the game.
Anthem is now available for Windows PC, PlayStation 4, and Xbox One. In case you missed it – you can find our thorough review for the game here.
