Anthem‘s potential rebirth is apparently not happening after all. Bloomberg’s Jason Schreier reported on Wednesday that EA has decided to cancel its Anthem Next project, which was a months-long effort to see whether the original title released in early 2019 could be reworked into essentially a new game based in the same world.
For more than a year, Bioware had been working on a roadmap for Anthem with a small team hoping to revive the online title that had some very intriguing ideas at its core. Many fans hoped that the major retooling could give the game second life after its debut was plagued with bad reviews and frustrated players. Other titles have made that pivot successfully, but after consideration from EA it seems the company has decided to shutter any plans to revamp Anthem moving forward.
As Schreier detailed earlier in the month, a team of about 30 people were working on a new version of Anthem, one that would need considerably more resources in order to make that game a reality for players, many of whom have held out hopes that the title that arrived with huge hype could turn into something closer to the online, mission-based shooter that was originally promised.
A small team had been working on this new iteration of the multiplayer game since 2019, but they were informed today that they'll be moving to Dragon Age 4. EA held a review of the game's progress earlier this month, as Bloomberg previously reported https://t.co/eQmTq2oEjZ
— Jason Schreier (@jasonschreier) February 24, 2021
Wednesday’s news, however, made it clear a rebirth is not on the way. According to Schreier, those who were working on Anthem Next will be moved to work on Dragon Age 4. In a blog post on Wednesday, Bioware blamed the pandemic in part for Anthem‘s cancelation.
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. And for me personally, Anthem is what brought me to BioWare, and the last two years have been some of the most challenging and rewarding experiences of my career.
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.
It’s unclear right now what the team had planned for Anthem, but now we know whatever it is will never reach players.