BioWare's Anthem will be gracing the cover of the upcoming July issue of Game Informer magazine, and the game will be the main focus of the periodical. During an interview with the studio, BioWare's general manager Casey Hudson and executive producer Mark Darrah spoke with Game Informer about the team's interest in creating smaller titles that will allow for more experimentation, but will still be true to the studio's values.

Worried that BioWare will become synonymous with only one or two major titles, such as Anthem, the studio is looking at its options. According to general manager Casey Hudson, the time is right to start trying new things. "I would like to get to a place where, yes, we're doing our big next thing, but maybe we're also kinda doing a few experiments," Hudson says, using short films as one example of the types of projects the studio would like to present to the public. "Partly because that's a lot of fun," he explains. "There's a lot of people here that have ideas that they want to get out that... you just don't always want to wait for the next big thing."

The team feels there are a lot of opportunities for AAA publishers to vary their projects, to branch out and create smaller titles that are consumed more quickly, while still retaining the quality of bigger games. These desires are partly influenced by the success of the retro RPG trend, as well as other indie projects. Executive producer Mark Darrah feels that indie titles allow for more freedom, and that they can do things that larger titles cannot due to player expectations. "I think there's a middle ground. I've heard it called AAA indie, but, which is that sort of high production value, but still smaller scale, smaller budget. There's only a few games that exist in that space right now. And I think there's an opportunity for more AAA stuff to be in there," Darrah says.

Using Rockstar's table tennis game as an example of smaller projects done by larger studios, the team believes there's value in those ideas, not just for the staff that works on them, but also because it is a way to see what resonates with fans.

"Anthem is definitely a game where we've tried to be a game for the future, but I think there's, uh, I think an opportunity for BioWare to be doing both, to be making games that are true to the corest part of our core and games that explore new parts of the audience like Anthem does," Darrah concludes.

Darrah is not just forthcoming in his interviews, he is also a major source of information on Anthemby way of his Twitter account, where he regularly answers questions from curious gamers. One of the latest tidbits he divulged was that the missions in Anthem were designed for four players. While missions can be played solo, they were created in a way to encourage more participants. There are no AI-controlled squadmates - a departure for a BioWare game - which means players will need to seek out teammates using an invite system and squad matchmaking features, both of which will be available in Anthem.

When looking for others, however, players will have to keep their search limited to the console they're on, as there are currently no plans for cross-play at launch.

Source: Game Informer