Eight years after its hype-inducing trailer, Anthem’s former director finally reveals why BioWare’s blockbuster really failed. Mark Darrah now admits the game, one of the industry’s biggest stumbles, never had a true identity.

It’s been eight years—no short amount of time—since Anthem was announced as BioWare and Electronic Arts’ boldest venture. Instead, it became one of gaming’s most public disasters. Now, Mark Darrah, a major figure on the project, has broken his silence in a new video series that exposes both internal missteps and questionable calls by both studio and publisher.

Darrah, a BioWare veteran with over twenty years at the company, details in the first episode how Anthem’s creation was plagued by uncertainty, leadership voids, and a “culture of secrecy.” Between 2011 and 2017, the team stumbled through a fog of vague mantras like “the future of storytelling,” with nobody quite sure what the game was or how to reach those lofty ambitions. When producer Casey Hudson left in 2014, Anthem lost its direction entirely for two years.

The team became stuck in a “culture of secrecy”—password-protected documents, encrypted hard drives, and meetings open to just a handful of staff. This top-down policy, fostered by BioWare management, stifled communication and forced teams to work in silos. The game’s core concept, narrative, and gameplay never gelled, sending the project through years of fruitless trial and error.

Even the Name Was an Afterthought

Darrah openly acknowledges Anthem never had a true identity. The only constant was what it wasn’t going to be: not Destiny, not Mass Effect, not Borderlands. Lacking a clear vision, the team bounced between half-baked ideas—from survival game prototypes to experiences with little or no flight. The game’s final name, Anthem, was literally chosen on the eve of E3 2017 after scrapping other possibilities like Beyond and Javelin.

Darrah took the reins in 2017, just when Anthem was supposed to be nearing completion. His leadership improved communication, but by then it was far too late to steer things back on track. He now promises more videos that will chronicle the chaotic last stretch of development and the rocky 2019 launch.

Source: 3djuegos