I suspect we all saw it coming earlier this month that Electronic Arts would decide the fate of BioWare’s scientific anthem. BioWare announced today that they will no longer be working on their remake called Anthem Next and will instead focus their attention on the next Mass Effect and Dragon Age 4.
Executive producer Christian Dailey announced this on BioWare’s blog today, saying it was a difficult decision and thanked the rest of the Anthem players for their feedback. “In the spirit of transparency and closure, we wanted to announce that we have made the difficult decision to discontinue our new development work on Anthem (or Anthem NEXT),” says Dailey. “However, we will continue to keep the Anthem-alive service going as it exists today.”
BioWare’s approach to a Destiny-like sci-fi adventure was not very well received when it was launched in 2019, but it was not the end of its journey. Last February, BioWare announced plans to upgrade Anthem with a small team of about 30 developers. They have shared some high-level concepts over the past year and plan to take their time to reinvent the game.
It would seem that the hands are needed more urgently elsewhere. “Not everything we planned as a studio before COVID-19 can be accomplished without unnecessarily stressing our teams,” Dailey says. “If we are to move forward, we need to 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.”
“We believed in every step in the Anthem, we’ve been investing in this game for almost a decade and we’ve proud of the work the team has done,” Laura Miele, EA’s chief studio officer, told IGN. “Anthem was a creative risk and its challenges taught us a lot about game design and even how we can improve our development process. It benefits not only developers but also players.” Like Dailey, Miele mentions that the cancellation of the work allows Anthem BioWare to focus on the next Dragon Age and Mass Effect games.
As a Dragon Age container, I have to admit that it’s a sigh of relief from me. Good for BioWare to try something new, but maybe it’s best to return to their proven range.