This video is only a part of a much larger story. For more, check out Jason's piece on the site: kotaku.com/how-biowares-anthem-went-wrong-1833731964

The story of development of Anthem is more interesting than the game itself

I thought I'd never say this but this is... ACTUAL GAME JOURNALISM.

This article hits home for me, having had a very similar experience at my previous job (even though I'm not a game developer). I worked at this job for 9 years, working my way up to executive director during that time. But then our company was sold to a much larger business, and the problems began almost immediately. And once my boss (the president of our company before it was sold) left, things went from bad to worse. New leadership had no idea how to run the business successfully, and never listened to employee concerns. Other employees started to back stab their coworkers on a regular basis to get in good with the new leadership, and it just became a downward spiral of toxicity. I eventually was demoted myself and then two years later my position was eliminated entirely. I'm still unemployed after 7 months, but even now it almost feels like a stress reliever no longer being there. I would often find myself crying in my car during my morning commute. Even though I'm struggling to find new work, and have the new stress as a result, it's still better than the poisonous environment that I suffered through for too long.

12-18 months is exactly how long this game feels like it’s been in development when played!

I was looking forward to Bioware's signature storytelling with world altering decisions, sadly that didn't happen

Is it just me or does Anthem's development cycle sound a LOT like Mass Effect Andromeda's development cycle?

"Technically, Anthem was in development for the last six years. In reality the game that came out was built in the last 18 months." Jaw genuinely dropped. Much of the criticism of Anthem will refer to "they had six years to fix this; why didn't they?" Well, there's your answer.

Jason Schreier is one of the very few people in gaming industry that values his integrity above everything else. The man should be commented because he shines bright in darkness. Good job!

Jason Schreier is a goddam beast. He can wrest open the closed mandibles of game development studios to pry loose the juicy bits of gossip and info that help make sense of the supremely messed up AAA development world. He's a treasure, and I hope he has some kind of goofy disguise kit on hand, as I feel like it's getting to the point where studios are going to paste his photo in break rooms with an All Caps warning saying "DO NOT TALK TO THIS MAN".

I was waiting for this. Thanks for the interesting story, Jason.

I just don't understand why these Multi-Billion dollar companies are jeopardising a new investment, by not letting it mature in-development before releasing it? Who pushes the button to say, if we release it now we will make 100 million dollars... but if we hold out 12 months we could make 200 million dollars and guarantee sequels and player retention with more content. Why release a Games as a Service product, without a years worth of content already in the bag... that you can release on demand, based on active player stats. Why undercook a game thats suppose to have a 5 year plan... when your already 3 months behind in content development, cause you decided to bring the release date forward on the roadmap.

Unfortunately this was Biowares last chance for glory after Andromeda. I fear this great developer will now join the EA graveyard along with Maxis,Westwood,Mythic,Origin etc. All they had to do was make KOTOR 3 and it might have saved them.

Games as a service needs to end. Quality is everything. Sekiro, God of War, Nier, Witcher 3. The bar is too high to make a mediocre game.

The most devastating part of all this? It wasn't even EA's fault. Bioware completely screwed the pooch, they truly have lost their touch. So tragic

This was fascinating. Kotaku is one of the few who really do the research about development and it's up and downs

I said it with Dragon Age. I said it with Andromeda. I have said it with Anthem and I hate it when I'm right when I hear that Frostbite engine played a part in the issues. I freaken hate how EA forces companies to use a Engine down a group's throat because it "works" on their games with huge loads of micro transactions but never fail to listen that Frostbite does not work well for heavily actioned/RPG based games. Just more signs that EA truly is just a publisher and have no actual knowledge on how to make games.

Thanks for the update Jason. You do great work in your exclusive articles.

When investigative gaming journalism is better than investigative broadcast news journalism

All the KZfaqrs that don't get along with him have 10's of thousands of views on their uploads covering his work? Time to give credit where it (clearly) is due. Amazing investigative work Jason, hope to see more of you on KZfaq!

This is so sad and disappointing

Thank you so much for actual subtitles!! It made me very happy to see them :)

Sounds like Bioware is broken.

Trust Jason to get the info needed to explain what the hell happened to this mess of a game.

Wow, never actually listened to Jason narrate a video before, only read his work. So good to put a voice to the name/work!

investigative games journalism! Love it!

in a world where gaming journalism is dying a slow and horrifying death, this article was a shining light. Thank you.

Thanks for doing this. Already heard about this from other sources covering the Kotaku article but I felt like I should come here and drop a thumbs up.

I never knew the drama of game development could last 5 years... only to push a game out in only 16 months. It's disappointing to think how many brilliant concepts and ideas just fell a long way from genius and game changing due to a small change in direction or loss of vision. Couple that with the stress to push out a game and a companies greed unable to cancel a broken project at the expense of resources and you get a lost opportunity with a mediocre product. I only hope publishers in the future will see this terrible shamble of a development story and realise it's simply not worth pushing a broken game. Some games just aren't ready to be developed or released until the right minds get together.

Hey Jason cool to see you doing a video as well written articles! 👍

Thank you so much for creating video versions of your longer articles. I love having another way to consume your great content.

Jason coming with the banger like always! Great job man! Kotaku is lucky to have you.

Damn Jason, this might as well be the best of your investigative piece!

Wow is all i can say, taking this game off my system. Great work, this is flat out embarrassing on EA

i'd really like to have a podcast version of the article so i can listen to it while i work.

Damn this is actual journalism. This video was such a breeze of fresh air! The community has grown sick of YongYea, DownwardThrust and CleanPrinceGaming regurgitating the same shit again and again with 20 minute long uninspired videos! Thanks a lot!!

Great job, Jason. Keep these companies honest and make sure they know horrible managers are responsible. As someone who dealt with a horrible manager for almost a decade and endured horrible depression and anxiety from it, I can’t imagine what it felt like to work on this game.

Jason......seriously this is great work i am blown away great job man!

Kinda sad that every other video about your work has blown up on YT but this only has 30k views.

Star wars cancellations are no longer a wonder...FROSTBITE! Snowdrop is great for RPG's EA should see if they can licence it from UBISOFT lol!

Remember when this was labeled as a "Destiny killer"?

Hi Jason great work... more vids please. I enjoy reading your articles and listening to splitscreen mainly because you challenge my own opinions and that's great. I don't always agree with everything you say but I don't have to. As long as I listen my opinion becomes more rounded which I like. Keep up the great work.

Read the full story, thanks for the great detail man, I knew the studio was going through controversial development, but never realized how messed up things had been.

Good video with some interesting insight. Also, I’m sure no matter which dev house you talk to, they will more than likely have a lot of negative things to say about their proprietary engine.

Great video, but an even better article. Congrats Jason and Kotaku!

Basically sounds like my retail store in the netherlands, hema. Only thing is our team doesnt make anything we just continually sell things and everyone has to be able to do every department because if we're.short on help you have to either be able to do multiple people's job on your own, or you have to be able to help with departments you know nearly nothing about...oh also were located on a shopping street so its always busy.

You guys might find this interesting: Before Dragon Age 2 released on the official forums one of the new project leads was answering fan questions. And his response to a dialog options/story question in the new game and future titles was along the lines of “We are moving away from huge dialog loops because it takes to much time/resources to manage so we are stream lining the process to release games quicker”...And we got Dragon Age 2 etc. Those people that made those great games are no longer in power there, It’s a shame but it is what it is.

Fantastic reporting Jason! The video game industry is lucky to have you.

Great work on this. Interesting to hear about and lines up pretty well with what the final product was. For what it's worth, I still enjoyed the game but it's just not the kind of experience i'll continue playing after I finished the "campaign". It had some fun moments and the flying mechanic was cool, but I can't even imagine what kind of endgame they could come up with that would make me want to play more.

You, although i disagree with some previous work, earn my respect with this. This is the best work you have so far.

"This last project was crap because we are focusing all our efforts on the next one" - Bioware about everything they made in the last years, apparently.

I’m so, so concerned about Dragon Age 4.

Actual journalism from Kotaku.... Wow. Never knew the day would come.

Jason, your work is outstanding as always

Amazing reporting! Knocked it out of the park with this one, Schreier

Jason this article is amazing and i am glad that reporters like you are making the game industry better for future developers by exposing these practices. Keep on doing what you're doing Jason.

KOTAKU has a KZfaq channel? I can't believe I just found out.

The only good and true Kotaku journalist everyone. Hell of a good job Jason.

Hats off to you Jason Schreier you did some amazing work here.

Thank you for the great journalism, Jason.

Reading the article and listening to this video, it's possible that leadership could have been taken by a random person and expanded, but it seems that chance was not given. My limited experience in the corporate world is simply following an order which I felt happened here. I'm often reminded of the goblin hero from the magic card game; it's not that you step forward, it's because everyone else stepped back. There's also talk of magic, but pinpointing how it starts and how it is implemented can easily be another story and would be really interesting to see then comparing them to the events here would be incredible to plot how bioware could make a comeback.

It seems like this whole story could have been reverse-engineered from publicly available information (no interviews required), but that's just because EA's modus operandi is so consistent. Great piece of reporting

I've had some...choice words in the past to describe Jason, and truth be told I still do. But I can recognize and give props when needed. Good job on this one Jason.

Jason killed it with this story, I’m really impressed. Great work all around.

Amazing article Jason! Great work!

Oh my god Jason sounds far younger than his photo on Kotaku

I implore people to read the article. Jason Schreier is absolutely one of the most interesting game journalists working today. Amazing access and incite

Good job. Your work on figuring this mess out is amazing. It's a shame however that you had to do this and EA and Bioware couldn't just make a good game.

Greg Miller sent me to read your article as required reading. I am glad I procrastinated, cuz now I can listen. haha

Also, if you liked the video, go read the article! Is really well written and, well, that's what Jason's work and Kotaku deserve.

Really wish Jason would start his own channel with news updates of info he gets from his network of connections.

was hyped for this game. the flying felt so good in the demo. quickly lost interest during the ea access 10 hrs.

As a developer myself, I find it really shortsighted to bet the success of a product on a single person, with all the other devs linked to that person. As soon as that person leaves or even dies (it can and has happened), the whole thing will fall apart. Where I work we do have team and product leaders, but everything follows a process and is documented so that if such a situation should happen, things can be picked up where they left off and carry on.

Fantastic video games journalism. How it should be done. Great work, Jason

While Inquisition was a decent 7 or 8 out of 10 in my book, that was the game that marked the decline in Bioware's game design. Mass Effect 3, for all of its controversy surrounding the ending, was the last EXCELLENT Bioware game. And that multiplayer had me kicking reaper ass for years to come.

It’s sad how I look forward to seeing THIS review by Kotaku, rather than the ACTUAL game!

Some really good insights here, well done!

I don't follow kotaku, but ofcourse I've heard of Jason Schreiers great work. I did not expect this voice :P

Don't really agree with you on some issues, but once again great work, this is so sad. Ppl wasting their money and time on unfinished products. Smh

So far love the video, but what's up with the weird border? Makes it look like an IG meme and I think it just distracts. Great reporting regardless!

Awesome work Jason! Thanks!

Very good video! Wow! Great information!

Anthem was the last EA game I'll ever buy. Thanks upper management for screwing everyone again.

This is Kotaku at its absolute best.

EA greed destroying another great studio.

Only hitting like cause I appreciate Jason hard work on this article big ups man

Say what you will about Jason, he made statements I don't agree with, but he does some amazing journalism. The only gaming journalist who isn't just a mouth piece for the publishers.

3:22 what kind of monster uses a mouse with their left hand?

Thanks for your great Journalism and exposing the TRUTH.

Mr Schreier deserves a big thank you from the fans of Anthem and from Bioware. Knowing the problem and no longer lying about it means it can be fixed. I also think Bioware needs to realize that they are in no way shape or form the great Bioware of the past. There is no magic in Bioware now or in the future. But hopefully the devs will now get support and someone in management will take a lead role. What a great report from the author.

Fascinating in so many ways, sad and unbelieveable. I know creativity is a capricious beauty, I had my fair share of uncreative moments, but I cannot imagine working on something for so many years without a vision or direction. It must have been really hard.

Frostbite makes great first person games but it's hard to work with and when you try to make it third person it makes it even harder to work with.

This is a really awesome article, thank you so much!

Shit that’s Jason Schier’s voice. I didn’t know his voice matches his written work: both excellent.

I love these long form videos with Jason breaking down the issues. Sad about Anthem. I've played every other Bioware game except for this - as soon as I heard it was more of a shooter, I knew it wasn't for me.

Man that Mass Effect 3 ending, made by a rogue director unbeknown to the writers, was REALLY the beginning of Bioware's death.

Hey Kotaku, can you guys also make a piece about Warframe? I was actually playing it while waiting for Anthem to release and I ended up liking it more. I wasn't able to buy Anthem but played it on a friends console it was good but underwhelming, don't get me wrong though I still like Anthem, I think it still has room to mature. A piece about Warframe and what Anthem can do to be better would be a good subject to write/talk about

Great journalism Jason!

THank you so much Jason for the Great Journalism work you do, really loved the article, your book and its such a shame to see what has been happening to Bioware.

This is Jason's strong point. He dares dig the dirt that is behind the problems of so many studios and projects. And it seems like this is turning into a constant, almost like Maths. Everyday I watch or read news about some scandal that erupted in some company because of mismanagement in a corporate and personal level, leading to immense lay offs and judicial problems. It's almost like a great disease of the modern world.