Former BioWare exec: Anthem was "too big of a reach" but the studio was right to risk it

Former BioWare executive Mike Darrah recently came forward to call out the studio's critics for creating Anthem in the first place. He stated that BioWare continued to evolve over the years by experimenting with new ideas and that Anthem was another risky project that, unfortunately, did not meet expectations.

Mike Darrah served as Anthem’s executive producer. He recently commented on the game’s server shutdown, which occurred seven years after the game was released in 2019. Darrah shared his thoughts in a 40-minute interview with YouTuber Destin Legarie, following the release of a nearly four-hour post-mortem video last week amid Anthem’s server sunset.

In the interview, Darrah called out gamers and critics who said that BioWare should stick to making single-player games. He said this view was shortsighted and ran counter to the studio’s history. In Mike Darrah’s own words:

I’m sure there probably are things where I feel like the record needs to be set straight, but I think it’s easy to blame EA. And certainly they deserve a bunch of blame for Anthem, but it’s not their fault.

He further continued:

But one thing that actually is worth mentioning, I think, is that there are some people that, at the time… these people loved coming out of the woodwork and saying ‘see, I told you so’ and saying ‘well, BioWare should have never made Anthem because they are a single-player RPG studio.'

Darrah challenged these notions and expressed his views, stating:

But my feeling is that BioWare has always been changing. I mean, by that argument, we should never have made Neverwinter Nights because we were a 2D RPG maker. We should never have made Mass Effect because we were a tactical RPG maker, not an action RPG maker.

So, I don’t think these arguments carry much weight with me. To me, it’s like, yeah, your studios evolve, and they try new things. And was Anthem too big a reach? Yeah, for sure. But could you tell at the time? I don’t know that you could.

Anthem launched as an online multiplayer title from the creators of Dragon Age and Mass Effect. It received mixed reviews and was marred by technical hiccups. Amid the game's state and user reviews, EA quickly halted Anthem updates in 2021. Now, in January 2026, Anthem’s servers have officially been shut down, making it essentially unplayable even for its relatively small, but loyal community.

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