Anthem
So it went for Anthem in 2020: In the live version of Anthem, practically nothing happened in 2020. BioWare announced that they would suspend the “regular updates” of the game to work on a major rework.
However, also regarding this rework, Anthem 2.0, BioWare kept largely quiet throughout the year. Eventually, a team of BioWare developers from Austin spoke up in May 2020. About 30 people would work on Anthem 2.0: Fans should not expect miracles.
It then became evident in several blog posts how they envisioned Anthem 2.0:
- The loot shooter was to become more solid and clearer – they eliminated some of the “innovative ideas” that Anthem had and wanted to rely more on proven systems, especially in the areas of progression and items. These were identified as weaknesses of the game.
- They wanted to retain the strengths in gameplay and aesthetics.
- Surprisingly, there were also some images of new content to see.
However, development evidently proceeded only slowly in 2020. Blog postings appeared infrequently. Most of the time, the head of the team, Christian Dailey, entertained the remaining fans of Anthem with Twitter posts.
At the end of 2020 came the news: Dailey leaves his post as chief savior of Anthem. He is moving to Dragon Age 4 as two important BioWare heads have left.
How does it continue in 2021? There is no announcement or timeline for the rework of Anthem 2.0. One should not expect anything to change in the live game anytime soon.
The outgoing chief, Dailey, says that Anthem is in good hands. However, one can probably not be too optimistic about the future of Anthem.
Dragon Age 4 and Mass Effect apparently enjoy high priority at BioWare. It is unclear how exactly BioWare plans to earn money with Anthem again. They have effectively ruled out DLCs. Additionally, players would consider it cheeky if EA and BioWare were to ask them to pay again for Anthem.
This is the state of Anthem before 2021: The good news is: It can’t get much worse. In 2019, before the release, players had huge expectations for Anthem, which were then disappointed. In the meantime, the mood was completely down: EA and BioWare lost some of their reputation when it became clear that Anthem could not keep its big promises.
The game was barely finished at release, and BioWare had not prepared content for the time after the release. Additionally, the problems with Anthem were so profound that no normal patches could fix them.
The game fell asleep shortly after release, while the development team moved on to the next project.
When the buyers of Anthem expected nothing more, it was announced: a rework is coming. But by then, Anthem was practically dead, and many had already written off the purchase price of Anthem as a loss.
At the moment, it seems that the majority of gamers have left the shooter Anthem behind. Everything that comes now seems to be seen as a bonus. However, it appears that an “Anthem 2.0” will take some time to arrive. Hopefully, someone at BioWare will assume the role of the diligent chief Dailey, who seemed like the only voice in the wilderness for Anthem. And he called that the game is still being actively developed.
