ANTHEM Developers Explain Why Flight Is Such An Important Feature In The Game
With one month left until the game's release, the developers behind Anthem have discussed why flight is so important to BioWare title and some of the challenges they faced. Hit the jump for more details.
By kdet -
Jan 14, 2019 10:01 AM EST
Gameplay footage for BioWare's Anthem has provided gamers with an excellent look at the different Javelins players will be able to use in the game, showing them in action on land and in the air. And if you've been paying attention to all of the footage, then you've undoubtedly noticed that the ability to fly is an integral part of the gameplay.
Now, in a recent video interview with the French website JeuxVideo, Game Director Jonathan Warner, Executive Producer Mike Darrah, and Lead Producers Ben Irving and Mike Gamble have opened up on why flight is so important.
"Player controlled characters must be able to fly," Mike Gamble said, explaining that this was the feature they needed to capture the "heroic combat" that they envisioned during the early stages of development. "Everyone loves it and it’s one of the oldest dreams of humanity. The reason why chose flight is because it’s at the core of the superhero fantasy. If you want to feel like a superhero what’s the most important thing? Flight! The possibility of going at high speed and see things from a bird’s eye point of view. Therefore we had to successfully make flying work and started to focus on it from the very beginning."
Although delivering a satisfying flight mechanic may have always been a part of BioWare's plans for Anthem, the developers revealed that they faced some challenges and had some worries while creating the game.
"The flight ability is extremely dangerous in a videogame because players could use it to ‘break the game’, go off the limits defined by the level designers, or use it to avoid zones and thus miss an opportunity to get loot," Jonathan Warner explained. "Combat designers, level designers and motion designers all had to work together to make sure they would create a flight ability that was fun and harmless to the game."
While gameplay for the title seemingly reveals that BioWare was pretty successful at creating a fun and visual stunning flight system, gamers will have to wait until the game's launch to truly decide whether the developers achieved their goal.
Anthem will be releasing on February 22 for Xbox One, PS4 and PC. Origin Access Premier subscribers, however, will be able to get it one week early on PC.