BioWare is hinting at what players can expect in “Anthem’s” narrative experience as well as whether a new “Mass Effect” is in the works in a blog post from general manager Casey Hudson.
“Anthem,” the highly anticipated multiplayer shooter, will have a shared world in which players can interact with each other and experience larger in-world events together. While the multiplayer part is completely optional– meaning players can go it completely solo if they so choose – BioWare wants to create a living world that can be shared among friends. A question BioWare has received, according to Hudson, is how players can have agency in their stories if those stories take place in an active world, affected by the other players within it.
The solution to this is is something BioWare coined “Our World, My Story.”
“In the dynamic open world, everything is experienced in real-time by all ‘Anthem’ players – day/night, weather, and world-scale events that shape the ongoing narrative of the setting,” Hudson writes. “This is ‘our world,’ which we share as a player community. Then when you return to Fort Tarsis, that’s actually a single-player experience, and it’s where you spend time developing relationships, making choices, and seeing consequences. That’s the ‘my story’ part.”
Hudson stated that BioWare will go deeper into the meaning of “Our World, My Story” at its PAX panel later this month. PAX West is coming to Seattle Aug. 31 to Sep. 3. Hudson also noted that the “Star Wars: The Old Republic” team is working on “new features and surprises” for the coming year— and that was as detailed as he was on the matter.
Finally, Hudson revealed that BioWare has heard “loud and clear” that fans of the “Dragon Age” and “Mass Effect” series want more. He teased that BioWare has “some teams hidden away working on some secret stuff that I think you’ll really like” but notes that the developer is not ready to talk about any of it just yet. For now, BioWare and Hudson seem mostly focused on Anthem, prepping for its release in 2019.
“We’re exploring some new territory with Anthem, and it means everything to us to have people around the world that are excited to come along with us on the journey,” Hudson says.
