In a long-feared, but not surprising, move, BioWare finally canceled Anthem. To be more specific, the company abandoned the planned redesign of the game to redirect people to the next Dragon Age and Mass Effect games.
Technically, you can still play the game as is, although BioWare has not stated how long it would keep Anthem’s live service running at the company blog post announcing the news. Given that the game hasn’t had a large amount of content since the Anthem Cataclysm update in September 2019, you won’t see anything new – and you probably won’t receive anything from revision announced in February 2020 that a small and dedicated team had been working ever since.
BioWare did not explicitly say why it abandoned the Anthem overhaul, but studio director Christian Dailey cited the effects of the pandemic on productivity throughout 2020 as the reason the studio did not deliver on what was planned earlier last year. But it was clear that the company is shifting its priorities to focus on the upcoming Dragon Age and Mass Effect games, and probably changing staff accordingly.
“Moving forward, we need to focus our efforts as a studio and strengthen the upcoming Dragon Age and Mass Effect titles, while continuing to provide quality updates for Star Wars: The Old Republic,” said Dailey.
Dailey was effusive in regretting the change, sharing that Anthem was what brought him to BioWare in the first place: “I know this will be disappointing for the Anthem player community, who are eager to see the improvements we are working on. It is also disappointing for the team that was doing a brilliant job. “
Requiem for a battle suit
The cancellation is not a surprise – and some may wonder why BioWare took so long to abandon the game. Anthem launched in February 2019 with mixed reviews, praising the controls and the feeling of flying and shooting with the mechanized suits of Iron Man Javelin, while criticizing the story, lack of content and widespread bugs. Hell, it was difficult to even get into the game at launch and load times when the transition between zones was extensive.
Although BioWare promised to continue working on the game, the much-vaunted AAA games-as-a-service title, which appeared to be a clear rival for Destiny, remained short in comparison to Bungie’s long-running online shooter. While BioWare promised a content roadmap starting with the Cataclysm content update in late 2019, the game declined in the public eye. At E3 2019, Anthem was barely mentioned during EA Play presentations.
The planned review promised a radical overhaul of the game, especially in the shoot-and-loot cycle of the game. Dailey launched several blog and Twitter updates throughout 2020 explaining what improvements the team was working on, while frankly admitting that things were likely to take longer due to the impact of the pandemic.
The writing may have hung on the wall in December, when Dragon Age veteran Mark Darrah announced on a blog post he was leaving Dragon Age 4 to be replaced by Dailey, a move that caused apprehension in the Anthem subreddit.
In the end, effectively shutting down Anthem is unfortunate given the game’s promise, but given the extensive impact of working conditions at home caused by the ongoing pandemic, it is understandable that BioWare prioritizes the next games over those who may never recover.