IS Game Informer to give the news exclusively: in the end, BioWare failed to convince Electronic Artswho decided to put an end to the project Anthem Next effectively closing the story of his failed looter shooter.
As you will certainly remember, Anthem was launched exactly two years ago (day more, day less), with a lukewarm response from critics and audiences that quickly turned into a wave of criticism. The lack of updates and content, combined with an almost incomprehensible and approximate endgame structure, forced BioWare to make a sensational backtrack, abandoning the initially planned roadmap and starting the design of a 2.0 version of the game, called Anthem Next, which it would rewrite most of the mechanics of the title.
Something similar to what has happened in recent years to titles such as Final Fantasy XIV and No Man’s Sky, disastrous (or almost) at the time of release and which today are very popular products.
This new version of Anthem, which has been in development for more than a year, will never see the light: EA has decided to permanently cancel Anthem Next.
“In a spirit of transparency and closure, we wanted to share that we have made the difficult decision to stop our new development work on Anthem (also known as Anthem NEXT). We, however, will continue to keep the Anthem live service running as it exists today. “executive producer Christian Dailey’s announcement reads.
As we read from the note, the Anthem servers will therefore remain active and players will be able to continue to take advantage of the title developed by the creators of Dragon Age and Mass Effect, but no false hopes are given: post-launch support is officially dead, and the only one what BioWare will do is make sure the services stay online and running. At least for now.
BioWare and EA did not provide detailed reasons for the decision (we recalled a few days ago that the giant was in the process of deciding what would become of the project), but it is not difficult to understand that it is a purely economic and organizational choice, in then in relation to the resources required.
As Game Informer points out, the most important question Electronic Arts has asked itself is “Even if the team has wonderful ideas, will these be enough to rehabilitate Anthem after so long?”. The answer is, unfortunately, a sharp no. Although many were hoping for a relaunch of Anthema game whose foundations are unequivocally solid but in need of an equally important restructuring, this return in grand style will not happen.
It is then the same Dailey to affirm that a good part of the “blame” for this decision is to be attributed to COVID-19 and to the situation of the whole of 2020, which has upset many of the plans of the video game industry:
2020 was a different year than any other, and as we continue to make progress on all of our game projects in BioWare, working from home during the pandemic impacted our productivity and everything we had planned as study before COVID-19.
As Dailey finally remembers, BioWare will now return to fully focus on its next projectsthat means Dragon Age 4 and the new chapter of Mass Effect, announced a few months ago with a first teaser trailer. As for Anthem, however, his story is officially closed. Chances are, the next time we hear about it, it will just be to announce the closure of its servers.
Anthem 2.0 (aka Anthem Next) has been canceled by BioWare. The studio has ceased all new development on the game. https://t.co/tw5JbFVYhL pic.twitter.com/S4uJqkASku
– Game Informer (@gameinformer) February 24, 2021
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