It appears that BioWare learned their lessons from Anthem's first test drive, which you may recall left a lot to be desired in terms of performance, but the company claim that the public demo ran smoothly and exceeded their expectations.
Anthem's head of live service Chad Robertson wrote that this time around, things were much quieter on the BioWare front. "Operationally, things were super smooth - our war rooms were tranquil this weekend, which is exactly how we like them", he said.
The game's two demo weekends saw more than 40 million hours of play, the response to which "was again overwhelmingly positive". We're a bit unsure as to the "again" part, because it would suggest that everyone was delighted with the first demo weekend as well.
Robertson reminded Anthem's fans that what they saw was just a "small taste of what's to come with the full game". The demo had no tutorials or pilot pickers and gameplay was limited to a single story arc, whereas the plan was to make the in-game world as story-rich as it is gorgeous.
BioWare were pretty impressed with the creativity Anthem's fans displayed while customising their Javelins, posting several of their favourites for all to see. You can see one of them below, as we thought it looked particularly menacing.
According to Robertson, the team are now working to finalise launch builds, putting to the test everything they've learned in the two demo weekends. He claims that the final version comes with a "long list of updates and improvements".
Anthem's post-launch content is being worked on as well, although we really hope they do better than the , which not only ticked off players - they cast a shadow of doubt on BioWare's earlier claims that EA are here.
EA
Thankfully, there will be ample time to prove this it and we reckon that Anthem can only get better, especially after the first round of testing set such a low bar. Anthem launches on 22 February for PC, PlayStation 4 and Xbox One.
You can find Robertson's post .
Anthem, action RPG shooter by BioWare and Electronic Arts
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