BioWare stops Anthem Next development to focus on the next Mass Effect and Dragon Age

nanoguy

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In brief: The promised major overhaul of Anthem has been officially cancelled a year later by BioWare. We may never know exactly why EA decided to pull the plug, but this will free up the developer team to work on the next Mass Effect and Dragon Age titles.

We had already heard that EA would soon decide the future of its overhyped and not-so-successful third-person shooter/RPG. Many Anthem fans held hopes of a No Man's Sky-style overhaul, but while that was previously the plan, it looks like it just wasn't meant to be.

When Anthem arrived two years ago, it was riddled with technical issues and didn't manage to live up to the hype EA had created around it. Still, some players gave it a chance, hoping that all of the issues would gradually be solved through continuous patches and content updates. For once, it wasn't EA's fault that development on a game it published went so wrong. While BioWare acknowledged the problem, its subsequent promise that it would magically solve everything by going back to the drawing board turned out to be all smoke and mirrors.

The studio has now officially stopped development on Anthem Next, which will undoubtedly leave some fans more than unsatisfied. Executive producer Christian Dailey explained that 2020 was a hard year and working from home has had an impact on the productivity of the team. This made it unfeasible for the undersized team of 30 developers to work on a complete remaster of Anthem while also maintaining the current game.

BioWare will keep Anthem servers alive for the foreseeable future, even if it means players will have to accept it as-is, warts and all. Dailey says that moving forward, the studio will be "laser-focused" on delivering the next Dragon Age and Mass Effect titles -- including the remastered Legendary Edition -- as well as pushing "quality updates" for Star Wars: The Old Republic.

Overall, it looks like BioWare is yet again scrapping development on a game that it failed to launch in good shape, which is becoming a worrying trend. Let's hope the studio can redeem itself with its next release.

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I would have loved to see a new Anthem game. But if I have to wait for it due to a new ME game, then fine. Dragon also fine. why not all 3?
 
That is them saying one more time: "We f**d up bad with Anthem"
By the way, Bioware stopped being a good studio long long ago.
I personally discovered how terrible on on levels they ve become, by playing Andromeda.
Idk how they could take all the assets the previous teams so carefully crafted and just throw it in a toilet like a drug dealer on whos door the cops are knocking.
They dont have a soul. Characters, dialoges, they all feel liek they were created by drop out students. Such low level of immersion and quality.
I will not buy another game from bioware, not from this Bioware.
 
I know I’m in the minority, but I think Anthem is the best game BioWare has released. I just couldn’t get into Dragon Age as I prefer a shooter, and Mass Effect just felt like too much of a chore to get through missions successfully.
 
Honestly, I'm fairly sure they came up with whole Anthem Next "new and improved" spiel just to squeeze a few more dollars out of the game to make back what they spent on it. It's no surprise to see it cancelled a little after the big holiday sales months. They figured they could get a few more people to buy it with the promise of fixing everything, and it worked.
 
Entry #47382 on why “live service” games are bullshit. Anthem was the blandest grindy-looty-shooty-microtransaction built puddle of slop since Evolve.

Quite frankly I feel bad for anyone who thought this would be improved or really get “10 years” of content. It should be illegal to take advantage of suckers THAT oblivious to history. I mean really, EA supporting a non MMO for 10 years? Did you think they were going to bring back Westwood while they were at it?

Also BioWare is a dead studio in all but name. Don’t get your hopes up that the next ME or DA is going to be anything but a nostalgia riddled cash grab.
 
I actually really like the basis of the game, it just need A LOT more content and re-work, but the overall combat and world discovery was amazing. Would have been nice to image this on a much grander scheme.
 
I get the feeling it's only a matter of time before we start seeing class action lawsuits against game companies that don't deliever what they promise.
 
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