Anthem Next is officially dead
I doubt that I would have to explain what Anthem is at this point as the release of this game was so monumental for all the wrong reasons, that it was impossible not to hear about it and since it’s release 2 years ago Anthem has been largely left to it’s own devices with EA and Bioware holding off on smaller updates to deliver a “longer-term redesign”. With what was later referred to as “Anthem Next” reportedly in the works, fans of the game had a metaphorical light at the end of the tunnel to look forward to but alas an announcement from the Bioware blog today put those hopes to rest.
Christian Dailey, the Studio Director of Bioware Austin, had this to say:
“In the spirit of transparency and closure, we wanted to share that we’ve made the difficult decision to stop our new development work on Anthem (aka Anthem NEXT). We will, however, continue to keep the Anthem live service running as it exists today.”
The full post can be found here:
An update on Anthem from Christian Dailey: https://t.co/twmWXAXj3B
— BioWare (@bioware) February 24, 2021
The rest of the blog post goes on to cite the reasons as to why Anthem Next’s development has been halted and offers up their apologies for getting people’s hopes up. The main reason cited has been pressures caused by COVID-19 but it’s also very likely that, A: Bioware is spread thin right now with the development of the Mass Effect Collection and the currently untitled new Dragon Age game and, B: there’s no real monetary benefit to revamping Anthem as it’s been a title of diminishing returns since release.
With all that said those who were hoping for a turnaround of No Man’s Sky or Final Fantasy Online proportions will be sorely disappointed. I will admit that while I’ve always been skeptical of Anthem Next, I was still hoping for it to get turned around as there still is a solid idea in the foundation of this game but sadly we won’t see it go anywhere any time soon.
