BioWare‘s next major title (which could make or break the studio’s future…) will be different from its previous games.

Casey Hudson, BioWare‘s general manager (who formerly worked on several games from Neverwinter Nights to the Mass Effect trilogy), wrote a blogpost that goes a bit more into detail about Anthem.

„I talked last time about Anthem being “a story you can experience with friends.” There were, understandably, some questions and concerns about the story in multiplayer. Specifically, “what if I don’t want to play with randoms?” “What if I don’t have friends that I play games with?” And, “I like to be the one making choices in my story—if it’s multiplayer, won’t the story get watered down?”

As a player, I worry about these things too—which brings us to the last line of our mission: become the hero of your story. In a BioWare game, you should feel like the story is about you. You create your character, you decide what happens next, and you become the hero. I think the reason people are concerned about whether these things are possible in a multiplayer game is that it just hasn’t been solved well before.

With Anthem, we’re taking this problem head-on and structuring the entire game design to provide a specific solution for this. We’ll be sharing details on how it works very soon [which obviously means EA Play – the editor]. We think it creates a unique experience where you have control over your own story, but your story is set in an ever-changing multiplayer world. And yes, even though Anthem is meant to bring out the best parts of playing as part of an online community, you can choose to play through the story with only your friends, or even on your own.

It’s true—we’re trying something different here. Anthem represents one way to deliver innovation and new experiences in the spirit of our mission. We also have teams envisioning future BioWare games, and they’re designing approaches that are different from Anthem—including one that’s very Dragon Age. As we try new things, I hope that you’ll come on the journey with us, and continue asking questions that will help shape Anthem into something we’ll all love to play.”

Indeed, Anthem will be part of EA Play, which will start on June 9, at 10 AM Pacific (1 PM Eastern, 6 PM in the UK, 7 PM CET, etc.). Anthem is obviously meant to be Electronic Arts’ response to Activision/Bungie’s Destiny, which isn’t what we were expecting from BioWare…

Source: BioWare