EA Abandons Anthem! Bioware CANCELS Anthem Next Leaving Players Furious!

Not a great job done here by anyone at EA or Bioware. It’s likely the right call, but dang.

According to NME:

Electronic Arts is reportedly holding a meeting this week to decide the fate of its failed multiplayer game Anthem.

Per Bloomberg, the gaming giant will be reviewing the reboot of the game, known thus far as Anthem 2.0 or Anthem Next, to decide on whether to expand the development team or abandon the project altogether. The information comes from “three people familiar with the matter”, who have asked not to be named.

Currently, the Anthem Next team consists of 30 people, and according to Bloomberg’s report, anonymous sources claim that number needs to be tripled “in order to produce new content and continue attempting to overhaul the game”. EA has yet to indicate if it’s willing to make that kind of commitment to the franchise.

Anthem was launched in 2019 by EA-owned developer BioWare. It was received poorly by players and reviewers alike thanks in part to a clunky UI, convoluted game mechanics and poor loading speeds.

Last year, BioWare announced that it would be overhauling the game. Over the following months, executive producer Christian Dailey outlined the developer’s plans in three blog posts – the latest of which was in October – but in December, he left the Anthem team as part of a BioWare management shakeup. Since then, the future of the project has been uncertain.