The lead producer of BioWare’s Anthem, Ben Irving, has recently announced that he is leaving the game developing company. According to a Twitter post by Ben Irving, he is leaving because he has accepted a position at another company, though he firmly believes that Anthem still has a bright future under new, but currently unannounced direction.
Ben Irving also said on Twitter that BioWare was his dream place to work, ever since he played the popular game Baldur’s Gate. He thanked the fans of Anthem for sticking with the game through its sporadic ups and its tough downs, and claims that they are in good hands with Andrew Johnson and Jesse Anderson. However, none of these tweets specified who would be taking his place as lead producer for Anthem, nor which game company he had accepted a position at, leading to his departure from BioWare.
(1/3) After 8 amazing years at BioWare I have made the decision to move on and have accepted an exciting opportunity at another gaming company. Since the first time I played Baldurs Gate many many years ago, BioWare was the dream place I always wanted to work.
— Ben Irving (@BenIrvo) August 15, 2019
Plagued with the same crippling deficiencies as most looter shooters and not providing nearly enough content for end-game players, Anthem had a hard time keeping its player base interested, even though many of its mechanics, movement especially, were amazing. Many of Anthem’s post-launch updates either got delayed or forgotten along the way to where it is now, with the first major post-launch update, Cataclysm, recently launching.
Without more details from Irving, it’s hard to say why he decided to move on from BioWare. Whether or not it has anything to do with Anthem and its difficulty in finding success is purely speculation. However, it seems likely that Irving himself wouldn’t jump ship unless he foresaw some sort of problem within the company, though perhaps he was just offered a much better deal at a different developer. Either way, it remains to be seen if the person that replaces him will well and truly do good things for Anthem, or if they will have just as much trouble solving the game’s problems and answering the many pleas from its fans.
