In a long frightening but not surprising move, BioWare Anthem has finally canceled. To be specific, the company has abandoned its planned game upgrade to reuse staff for the next Dragon Age and Mass Effect games.
Technically, you can still play the game as it is, though BioWare has not said how long it will continue Anthem’s live service in the company. blogpos announces the news. Since the game since the Anthem Cataclysm in September 2019, you will not see anything new – and presumably you will not see any of the renovation announced in February 2020 that a small, dedicated team has been working on it ever since.
BioWare did not explicitly say why they abandoned the Anthem refurbishment, but studio director Christian Dailey cited the effects of the pandemic on productivity during 2020 as a reason the studio did not achieve what it planned at the beginning of last year not. But it was clear that the company was changing its priorities to focus on the next hip-age Dragon Age and Mass Effect games and likely move staff accordingly.
“To move forward, we need to focus our efforts as a studio and strengthen the next Dragon Age, and Mass Effect titles, while continuing with the updates of Star Wars: The Old Republic,” Dailey said.
Dailey was very persuasive of the protest and believes that Anthem brought him to BioWare in the first place: ‘I know it will be disappointing for the community of Anthem players who were excited to see the improvements we were working on. It is also disappointing for the team that did brilliant work. ”
Requiem for a combat suit
The cancellation is not a surprise – and some may wonder why BioWare took so long to abandon the game. Anthem was launched in February 2019 to praise mixed reviews praising the controls and feel of fly and shoot in the mechanized Iron Man-like spear packs, while criticizing the story, lack of content and widespread flaws. Heck, it was hard to even sign up for the game at launch, and loading times when the transition between zones was extensive.
Although BioWare promised to keep working on the game, the AAA games-as-a-service title, which seemed like a clear competitor to Destiny, still fell short compared to Bungie’s long-running online shooter games. While BioWare promised a roadmap of content starting with the late 2019 update of the Cataclysm content, the game has declined in the public eye. At E3 2019, Anthem was barely mentioned during the EA Play presentations.
The planned overhaul promised a radical overhaul of the game, especially in the game’s shoot-and-shoot loop. Dailey has released several blog and Twitter updates over 2020 that explained what improvements the team has been working on, while openly acknowledging that things are likely to take longer due to the impact of the pandemic.
The writing was possibly on the wall by December, when Mark Darrah, a veteran of the Dragon Age, in a blogpos he left Dragon Age 4 to be replaced by Dailey, a move with anxiety on the Anthem subreddit.
Ultimately, it’s unfortunate because of the game’s promise to close Anthem effectively, but given the far-reaching impact of the work-from-home conditions caused by the ongoing pandemic, it’s understandable that BioWare upcoming games will take precedence over games that may never recover.