The shooter Anthem has been struggling with issues since its release. There has been speculation for a while about whether the further development might be discontinued. Now it is officially confirmed that EA and BioWare will no longer work on Anthem Next or any updates in general.
This is what Bioware says: In an emotional blog post, Christian Dailey announced that the work on Anthem and the overhaul Anthem 2.0 or Next will be discontinued.
While it has been hard at work on the game since its release, as Dailey emphasized, 2020 was a difficult year due to COVID, and productivity was generally lower:
2020 was a year like no other, and while we at Bioware continue to make progress on all of our game projects, working from home during the pandemic has affected our productivity, and not everything that we had planned as a studio before COVID-19 can be achieved without excessive stress on our teams.
Therefore, they have now decided to cease work and focus on upcoming titles from Mass Effect and Dragon Age, as well as to bring new updates for the MMORPG SWTOR.
In conclusion, he thanked the Anthem community:
To the Anthem community: Thank you for your passion and creativity. Your feedback and suggestions certainly help shape the direction of the team, and on a personal note, your kindness and encouragement over the past year were very much needed.
What’s next for Anthem? Anthem is not to be discontinued for the time being. The game will continue in its current state. However, there will be no updates.
It is unclear how long the servers will ultimately remain online.
Anthem is being shelved after a long struggle
This is how the development of Anthem went: Anthem was released in February 2019. It quickly became clear that while the fundamental gameplay of Anthem could be convincing, the game systems could not. Especially the issue of loot was criticized.
Anthem was supposed to run for 10 years, but soon after the release, crucial updates were missing. Barely a year after release, it was stated that a major rework was to come: Anthem 2.0.
From March to November 2020, sporadic blog posts and Twitter messages about the status of Anthem Next were published.
In February 2021, journalist Jason Schreier reported that EA was internally deciding whether to continue or discontinue Anthem.
Electronic Arts pulls the plug on Anthem
What was happening with Anthem Next? Anthem 2.0 (or Anthem Next) apparently spent a year and a half in an “incubator” stage. This was already a stopgap, as far as we know from insider reports:
- Originally, a team in Austin, Texas, who had previously worked on the MMORPG Star Wars: The Old Republic was supposed to oversee the further development of Anthem
- The heads who were supposed to carry out this further development left BioWare one after the other in 2019
- Moreover, it became apparent that Anthem could not be saved with “normal updates”. Hence, the project “Anthem Next” was initiated, a major overhaul of the game.
- Back then, we at MeinMMO believed that Anthem was “too big to fail” for EA – too big to just let it go
- The project began in an “incubator” mode with a small team of 30 people – they were apparently supposed to do the groundwork
- At first, according to insider reports, the team in Texas was still hopeful and looking forward to “saving Anthem” and had a clear vision
Now, on the 2nd anniversary of the game, in February 2021, this incubator phase of Anthem was over. EA had to decide whether to move into full production of Anthem Next or not.
Apparently, they decided against it.
Observers had foreseen this development. For it was not clear how EA could make money with Anthem Next again. Early on, BioWare and EA had ruled out charging for DLCs for the game.
A further development would likely have simply been too expensive.
Moreover, Christian Dailey, the head of Anthem Next, had left the team by the end of 2020: He had to help out elsewhere at BioWare. He took over the leadership of Dragon Age 4.
Anthem was designed in 2019 as a game meant to capitalize on the significant success of Destiny. However, this game is also not as strong as it was a few years ago. Much seems to indicate that loot shooters are generally in a crisis. MeinMMO editor Schuhmann took a closer look at the situation:
MMO shooters in crisis: Here’s the state of Destiny 2, Anthem, and Division 2
