Casey Hudson is back, with a blog post about the way forward for BioWare as well as Anthem.  Not much there really.

He was the director of the Mass Effect trilogy, which by most accounts was quite solid – minus the ending of the 3rd game.  Ironic that, seeing as how BioWare continues to tout story as a driver.  More of a point against losing Drew Karpyshyn I think.

Aaryn Flynn took over for Andromeda, and well, there’s enough material on that topic already.

What’s neat here is that Casey does have a track record for solid RPGs and there’s some level of confidence that he can deliver that specific experience.  It would be somewhat novel to have a solid story-based shlooter, more like what Borderlands was able to provide.  Destiny sure isn’t it, nor is the Division.

That said, I think most people’s weariness to any BioWare game is the EA taint.  There’s some news going around that they are re-evaluating micro-transactions and their fundamental financial models.  I have as much faith in EA corporate as I do in Zuckerberg’s ability to “fix Facebook”.

SWTOR took a long time to come into it’s own.  There’s a handful of spots to read about it, but it succeeds despite the overlords.  That F2P transition was a turning point as to how not to do it, what with selling action bars for money.  It’s certainly serviceable now.

I do think that Anthem will deliver a good base experience.  I do not think that the financial model and underlying mechanics will be a good experience for gamers.  At this point, it’s really up to Casey to convince everyone listening that Anthem will be the exception to the EA rule.  E3 is a good a place as any.