Following an internal meeting earlier this month, the major overhaul planned for BioWare's ANTHEM has now been officially cancelled. A new blog post states that while the live service will remain active, development on any new content or updates has ceased. "I know this will be disappointing to the community of Anthem players who have been excited to see the improvements we’ve been working on. It’s also disappointing for the team who were doing brilliant work", said Christian Dailey. Bloomberg reports that the small team that had been working on the project has been moved on to the studio's next RPG, Dragon Age 4.
Dailey goes on to explain that the COVID-19 pandemic had a huge impact on the team's production efforts, meaning it couldn't finish everything it set out to do. Attempting to follow through with its plans would have placed too much "undue stress on our teams". He then thanks the fans who stuck by ANTHEM for their passion, kindness, and encouragement. "Game development is hard. Decisions like these are not easy. Moving forward, we need to laser focus our efforts as a studio and strengthen the next Dragon Age, and Mass Effect titles while continuing to provide quality updates to Star Wars: The Old Republic."
How do you react to the news? Were you hoping the looter shooter could be revived with a big overhaul or was BioWare's attempt doomed from the start? Make your verdict in the comments below.
[source blog.bioware.com]
Comments 62
Not surprising in the least. There was some potential there but too many core aspects were just not good at all.
Well, that's understandable. I was considering getting this as it's on sale but I probably won't now as I've heard it's not great in it's current form, which is now apparently the final form lol
If EA is this quick in cutting their losses, and only supporting initially succesful projects, they should at least put more effort into delivering quality titles in the first place. Still I don’t believe they’ll ever learn...
Boooooo! I wanted a good Anthem
F for all the 6 people still playing this game
Sigh... I kinda knew it but still had hope :/
Damn it EA!
But at least they are really focusing on Dragon Age and Mass Effect, so I guess Anthem's death is worth something.
No surprise.
I bought Anthem off eBay new and sealed for £5 a few months back in the hope they’d come through on their plans to revamp the game. I guess I might as well jump in now because they inevitably shut the servers down
Did it ever get close to looking like the demo from E3? The storm physics and gameplay was amazing looking for the time. I was hoping they could at least come close to that.
May as well give it away free to play. I still won't play it, but they may as well.
Wow at least many of the other big failure games ended up delivering down the road. But I guess people can’t really hate EA more then they already do.
Easy option to blame it on Covid 19 not through lack of sales. Hey ho, now let them be laser focused on Dragon Age, Mass Effect and Star Wars: The Old Republic during a pandemic.
In the light of incoming Outriders looter shooter it is reasonable move.
Arent we already getting the Anthem overhaul? I think its called Outriders.
Anthem will forever be remembered as a comedy of errors
"Don't throw good money after bad"
A predictable, but disappointing outcome. They have an easy out with the COVID excuse, it’s only natural to utilize it while they can.
“I know this will be disappointing to the community of Anthem players who have been excited to see the improvements we’ve been working on.”
Rough translation: we’ve made our money, sooo long suckers!
Guess not everyone can be Hello games, even Bethesda didn't give up on Fallout 76. This just rerererere-comfirms to everyone that EA stands for crap.
I know we can all joke around Anthem's failure, but there's no denying that this announcement is very underwhelming. Anthem was one of those games that actually has potential to make a comeback, just like No Man's Sky, FF14, Destiny, even to a certain degree, Fallout 76. I feel bad for the community. I wish the best for the developers. Maybe in the future, Anthem 2 could become a reality once they finish with Dragon Age and Mass Effect?
Its a shame for the people who were working on the overhaul, but im glad they weren't just discarded but are now helping with Dragons Age.
It had a super fun core gameplay, shame everything else couldn't meet that standard, farewell Anthem! Your story will be legendary I suppose.
Dang that's terrible for those who liked the game. Sony, Microsoft should stop selling the game on their platform then. Luckily for me I only played it for 1 hour the ps4 version is terrible anyway. Crashes, bugs, frame problems etc.
Generic crap.
It should've been cancelled before it started !
@WilliamFrost12 Fallout 76 was much worse than No Man Sky and Anthem but look at it now 2 expansions free mind you and the road map looks promising but wish the game stop crashing and wish there were more hair styles for our characters. Events are dropping high end loot and the latest limited event gave me 3 level 3 stars in one run of the event.
Avengers is next
Be sure to buy our next game lol.
Anthem was as good as dead on arrival but 2020 effectively killed any chance of a comeback release. Its still the best thing that can happen for both Mass Effect and Dragon Age.
This was a good move, tough to fix a sinking ship that's already sunk. Cut your losses and move on. If Dragon Age 4 is terrible then I think that will be the end of Bioware.
Everybody trying hard to make a come back (Destiny, FF14, NMS, fallout) but it’s once again EA that likes cancelling everything.
I’m glad they also lost the Star Wars license, because now there is nothing holding me on EA.
Not surprising. If anthem had a bigger active player base, they’d have continued with 2.0. But as it stands, the game just doesn’t have the player base.
That is the issue with live service games. Every developer wants to put out the next Fortnite, or the next Apex Legends, or the next Overwatch. But it’s hard as hell to do. And the live service model lives or dies on how well it can retain players in the first three months. If more than 2/3rds of the player base drops the game in that timeframe, then it’s as good as dead barring extreme circumstances (like Fallout 76, although in fairness it has the Fallout brand to fall back on).
So millions were ripped off after promised content and improvements never happened. Can see EA getting sued. False advertising and false promises. Step up Avengers you're next.
Anthem was actually a decent game (for the £20 I paid for it). I definitely got my money’s worth but sadly there was nothing there to keep me playing post Platinum.
Saw this coming R.I.P
Well I'm annoyed because it had promise if they gave it time but hey it's only EA right and it's most important thing "Shareholders" and theyve now got CodeMasters and the F1 and GRID IP's so they'll need there bright minds of....
1) How to make the next lot of games but not as good as they was before the take over.
2) Plan the course for 2 failures so they can take the IP and desolve the CodeMaster names like the rest of it's victims.
They've lost to much money on Anthem and that big take over EA doesn't like seeing a minus on it's accounts.
Unfortunate. I bought it for 5 euros thinking I would play it after the update...guess we'll never know how the improved version was going to be. I was excited...sad news
Do you remember this one?
''Anthem is a 10-Year Journey Like Destiny, Says EA Exec''
Not everyone would pour ressources to save a game like FFXIV by restarting development from scratch. It's not like anyone expected EA to allocate enough ressources and time to make a game worth playing. EA management must really hate Bioware.
@Octane That's hilarious. There is not a single dimension in which that quote wasn't a lie.
I don't buy the Covid excuse. Covid or not this was gonna happen. It's an easy way to shift responsibility that won't be challenged as much here.
Thanks Goodness. All hands should be on deck for Dragon Age 4. Please Bioware make that game as perfect as you can. Dragon Age Inquisition set up 4 so perfectly. I hope they do this series justice. And release a remaster of 1 and 2 on Next Gen.
Let’s get some F’s in chat
F
This is so typical of anything that gets EA's dirty fingerprints on it. Bioware lost all independence and project control when they lifted their skirts for EA.
They used to make such great, focused games. Mass Effect 4 will probably now have a space station devoted to sucking more money out of players.
Another one bites the dust.
That’s too bad. This game has/had a lot of potential. Granted, I came on board late after a lot of patches, but I really enjoyed my time with the game. Very disappointing EA...
Man what a massive waste. Dragon Age better be amazing.
I hope Bio has learn from Anthem and Andromeda and make the next ME and dragon age game better.
@haoie FInal Fantasy would like too have a word with you.
Two ends of the spectrum: Anthem one end and Hello games the other! Greedy large developers could t care less about actually delivering because they know they’ll hook more suckers down the line.
Smaller developers spend years creating free updates for games that initially disappointed.
Fck dragon age 4
@LordSteev Its not completely on EA there are quite a few pieces about the total mismanagement from the higher ups at Bioware.
@Rhaoulos Final Fantasy 14 was quite the succes after the revamp it can be done but only if the company wants it too succeed.
Hi there fellow gamers.
This must suck for any Anthem fans out there and especialy for the team developing the game.
But at least I hope more game companies realize that launching half-assed products, filled with microtransactions, with no content whatsoever is a bad move for everyone.
Let this be a lesson for them and for the unfortunate players who decided purchased games like this in the first place.
Games as a service are not wanted, nor needed.
Cheers, stay safe and happy gaming to us all
damn this game had some great elements.... the visuals, the flying and shooting tactics were all spectacular.
to bad... RIP Anthem
@Flaming_Kaiser
I agree with you, they've been on a downhill slide for quite a while now. Ever since the original founders, Ray Muzyka and Greg Zeschuk, decided to get out in 2012, it's been downhill ever since. Once they got bought by EA, the steepness of that hill just became way more pronounced.
I'm a huge fan of the original Dragon Age, and I think the Mass Effect trilogy is the best Sci-Fi story ever told in gaming. Having said that, I have no faith in the shambles of what are left of the once great Bioware to magically reproduce the earlier successes of the studio.
I hope I'm pleasantly surprised by DA4 or ME5, but it would be just that, a surprise.
The shock of the century.
I AM SHOCKED!
Expect this to happen to any live service game that isn't an instant hit. Games that try to pull through are the exception rather than the rule.
So again I ask is dragon age 4 still doing a games as a service model?
No more BioWare games for me I guess. Seems like their last few releases were broken pieces of junk and they just moved on to the next thing after scamming customers out of their money.
Lol. Anyone actually expecting an overhaul is delusional.
An impossible task for Bioware to turn this game around especially for a small team.
Learn form these mistakes and do not repeat them with future games.
My main issue was you lose your friends when you return to the fort and the only place to hangout was in a boring hanger room.
@LordSteev Lets hope we are both wrong and they deliver a great game. 😉
@Voltan Same here. Although the flaws got me so angry I deleted it from the PS4, cracked the disk in two and threw it across the room - Anthem had great gameplay and tons of potential plot expansions what with all the characters and the possible expansions that were teased in their backstories. If only EA had left Bioware alone and given them the time and resources to get on with it. EA and its corporate 'profit above all else' attitude is the sole and primary root for Anthem's failure
EA's reliance on tried and tested titles like Dragon Age, like other blockbuster franchises COD, Battlefield etc is why the market makes it so difficult for new and original games to take off. EA were desperate to squeeze Bioware/Anthem into their own 'corporate vision' they killed off any originality and creativity that could have made the game a stand-out AAA game. Forcing them to use EA preferred software, pushing publication above content, under-resourcing development
R.I.P Anthem
They can’t blame COVID
I'm not surprised this was canceled in the end, good riddance.
Hopefully it hits PS Plus at some point.
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