BioWare Discusses Anthem VIP Demo Issues

There’s a good chance that you had some difficulties if you tried playing the Anthem VIP demo, which took place this past weekend. Players on social media reported a variety of frustrating issues, including “infinite” load screens and an inability to connect to the demo’s servers. A common refrain from gamers was that EA and BioWare underestimated the number of players that would attempt to play the demo, which was limited to pre-order customers and EA/Origin Access subscribers. Those players had the option to invite three of their friends to try the demo as well.

It turns out that the truth is a little more complicated than that. In a blog post on the studio’s official website, BioWare’s Head of Live Service Chad Robertson debunked the prevailing theory about server load and explains that “excess capacity” for player connections was available for the duration of the demo.

Robertson’s post highlights the three primary issues that the Anthem VIP demo faced. Simply connecting to the demo servers on the first day was difficult for many, including myself, and that “was caused by the spike in players entering the game when [the demo] opened up.” The “infinite load” issue is also addressed as Robertson explains that BioWare encountered the issue “in isolated cases during internal testing and believed it was resolved. Unfortunately, the problem is exacerbated in the real-world where differences with player’s ISPs and home networks introduce new behavior.” Lastly, there was an issue where player’s accounts weren’t flagged for demo access. Robertson states that there was “a bug where VIP players with a specific combination of entitlements were being blocked from accessing the demo,” but it was mostly resolved.

The post goes on to state that BioWare was working to completely eliminate these issues while the VIP demo was live, but it was possible that some of the fixes would be included with this weekend’s open demo. There seemed to be a lot of interest in the VIP demo despite its issues, however, as players watched over 100 million minutes of gameplay while it was live. Robertson also revealed that anyone who participated in the VIP demo will receive a bonus vinyl for all four Javelins at launch.

Anthem will release on PS4, Xbox One, and PC on February 22nd. The open demo for the game will go live at 9:00am PST on Friday, February 1 and wrap up at 6:00pm PST on Sunday, February 3. It was recently announced that the game has gone gold and will include a new online lobby that was inspired by player feedback.