Alex Levine February 9th, 2021 - 8:44 AM
It’s been a while since we heard about BioWare’s Anthem. The online-only multiplayer title launched in February 2019, and infamously flopped due to numerous server issues, as well as multiple bugs that continuously hampered the development, before and after its release. BioWare is attempting to “relaunch” the game with a major overhaul initially planned for 2020, but as of this writing, that overhaul has yet to see the light of day. Apparently, it’s all coming to a head as Bloomberg’s Jason Schreier has reported that the studio’s parent company EA is going to decide this week on whether to let the eventual overhaul of Anthem take place, or make an executive decision and completely shut down the game.
NEWS: For the last year and a half, BioWare has been in “incubation” mode overhauling the maligned online game Anthem.
This week, EA will review the progress of “Anthem Next” and decide whether to expand the team or put an end to the project. https://t.co/eQmTq2oEjZ
— Jason Schreier (@jasonschreier) February 8, 2021
According to the report, EA executives will look over the latest version of Anthem, and see just how much more work the game will need in order to be considered profitable. The current overhaul team only consists of 30 people, whereas they will reportedly need approximately 90 developers. This expanded team will not only rework the overall gameplay and mechanics but also add in brand new content, more than likely to entice returning players, not just new ones. Obviously, this will require some investment from both BioWare and EA, which is why the latter is looking deeply into this situation.
Anthem’s rocky launch and subsequent post-release process have been well documented at this point, and quite frankly, we wouldn’t be surprised to see EA cut their losses and move on. It’s an unfortunate situation for both sides to be on, especially given all of the pre-launch hype that the game generated when it was initially announced. That being said, BioWare is also busy working on several projects, one of which is the much anticipated Mass Effect Legendary Edition, a collection of the Mass Effect trilogy that is scheduled to launch this May. They’re also developing the next entry of the series, and the long-awaited entry of the Dragon Age franchise.
