Ben Irving, Anthem's lead producer leaves BioWare

Ben Irving, the lead producer for EA and Bioware's looter shooter Anthem announced his departure from the company yesterday. 

Executive producer Mark Darrah, lead director Jonathan Warner and Irving's predecessor, former lead producer Michael Gamble all left Anthem's development team earlier in the year.  

In a three tweet message, Irving said his goodbyes and assured Anthem fans that they're in the good hands of EA global lead Jesse Anderson and EA / Bioware global community lead Andrew Johnson. "I believe Anthem has a bright future," he added, in a possible bid to reduce the speculation his departure would create. It didn't do much. 

Many of the comments received weren't happy with his leaving or the game. One stated, "Thanks for leaving anthem when it failed," and another said "Leaving BioWare behind like the rest of us." Yet, not all were negative or disappointed. Many wished him luck with his new endeavours and appreciated all his work at the company. His tweet also received over a thousand likes and about 120 retweets, so clearly not everyone sees him as the bad guy. 

After a rough launch and even worse follow-up caused by numerous delays and setbacks, Anthem is in a considerably better place now. The recent Cataclysm update, though not perfect, has given fans less to complain about and the fact that the game hasn't been dropped yet shows it could still have a bright future. After all, No Man's Sky managed to pull off a great comeback after a horrible launch of its own. 

Irving worked at BioWare for eight years and now leaves to join another game company.