Initially hyped to be the next big IP from BioWare and a game set to deliver content for years on end, Anthem instead launched in a poor state and revealed severe mismanagement of development by the studio. Over the past couple of years we’ve had glimpses of how Anthem was set to evolve and effectively “relaunch”. However, BioWare confirmed today that is no longer the case.
Studio Director Christian Dailey took to the BioWare blog today to explain that any future development on Anthem, including “Anthem Next”, has been cancelled. According to Dailey:
2020 was a year unlike any other however and while we continue to make progress against all our game projects at BioWare, working from home during the pandemic has had an impact on our productivity and not everything we had planned as a studio before COVID-19 can be accomplished without putting undue stress on our teams.
I know this will be disappointing to the community of Anthem players who have been excited to see the improvements we’ve been working on. It’s also disappointing for the team who were doing brilliant work. And for me personally, Anthem is what brought me to BioWare, and the last two years have been some of the most challenging and rewarding experiences of my career.
The game will continue to run as it stands today, just without further updates. You can find the full blog post from Christian here.
Our Take
This is not only disappointing, but almost unbelievable. After a momentous launch that resulted in near immediate profitability for the new IP, it became obvious that development had seen a lot of struggles and the final product was not what was promised. Fans then looked to BioWare to correct this over time which was the basis for Anthem Next. Now, nearly two years later, that plan is cancelled without recourse. We feel this is incredibly disingenuous from BioWare and an insult to fans.
