With 2019, and the release of Anthem, rapidly approaching, BioWare general manager Casey Hudson has provided an update on what’s happening at the studio, and the news is fairly encouraging. Anthem development is in the final stretch, with the focus now being on play testing and bug-fixing. In fact, the game has now entered the “play from home” stage, meaning regular BioWare employees are now testing out the game from their own couches and providing feedback. According to Hudson, this is a long-standing and important tradition for BioWare…

　　“[The play from home build is] a tradition at BioWare.  Late in a project, when the game is good enough and finished enough to really enjoy it as a complete experience, we enable it to be played at home by our developers.  It’s an incredibly important step, because it allows us to get out of the mindset of being at the office, and just be at home experiencing the game like a player instead of a developer.  Everything that prevents you from loving the game becomes a task or a bug, so we know that when we finish that work, we’ll have something really special.”

　　Hudson also dropped some hints about popular existing BioWare franchises, Dragon Age and Mass Effect. Per Hudson, we’ll be getting some new info on “secret Dragon Age stuff” sometime in December. Hmmm, could some sort of announcement be forthcoming at The Game Awards 2018? As for Mass Effect, the recent Xbox One X update for Mass Effect: Andromeda was “just a small part of the plans we’re making for [the franchise] going forward.”

　　Obviously, it’s Hudson’s job to put a happy face on things in these studio updates, but it does sound like BioWare is getting back up to speed following the failure of Mass Effect: Andromeda and the dark period that followed. Fingers crossed that Anthem lives up to its potential.

　　Anthem arrives on PC, Xbox One, and PS4 on February 22, 2019.