Anthem Went Through “50 Billion” Control Schemes To Reach Its Current Point
We’ve seen quite a bit by now of the upcoming BioWare title Anthem, by now, but we still have questions about how it’ll feel. Many outlets were invited to try it out at E3 2018, and we’ve heard a lot about how it feels and plays, especially with the flight controls we’ve all been wondering about. According to a report from Polygon, Anthem feels like a “capable” shooter that’s “comfortable” and “easy to control.” The javelins even feel good, but to get to this point, it apparently took BioWare a very long time to tinker with the controls and figure things out.
According to senior producer Mike Gamble, it took a very, very long time. And a lot of tries, too.
“That control scheme that you played? It’s, like, the 50 billionth control scheme that we’ve done,” Gamble said. “Like, you constantly iterate on it until it feels right. We have people who are experts in camera, water, great animators, experts in movement.” Obviously, Gamble is using hyperbole here, but it’s not hard to imagine at least hundreds of different schemes were pored over before there was a happy balance struck between familiar and innovative.
It’s not hard to understand why the controls have to be just right, either, when you have so many different things going on in the game. You can use the left and right thumbsticks on your controller to toggle between flying, hovering, or landing, and use the left and right triggers to shoot. With that kind of scheme, it’s got to feel different, and according to Polygon, it definitely does.
Unfortunately, it’ll still be a ways off before any of us get to test out Anthem at home, but fear not. It’s targeting a February 22, 2019 launch, so that’s not too far away. Plenty of time for us to learn more until then, thankfully. We can’t wait to see what’s coming next.