Anthem has had a rough history, to say the least. The game launched in an incredibly buggy and empty state, landing squarely as the worst AAA title developer BioWare has ever released. The studio and EA have since maintained a stance that it will continue to support the game to ensure that Anthem realizes its original potential, but its long and difficult road may be coming to an unceremonious end, as BioWare’s continued silence speaks volumes.
Anthem was first unveiled at E3 2017, and while the game looked to have promise as a cooperative 3rd person action-adventure shooter, development was struggling behind the scenes. The game would come out in February 2019 with a litany of bugs and a severe lack of content, particularly in the area of a cohesive narrative, something that BioWare is traditionally renowned for.
An in-depth report released after Anthem’s disastrous launch revealed that a large swath of Anthem was only developed in the 18 months prior to its release, and that constantly changing management and game direction led to a lackluster game. That same management struggle was consistent across BioWare during the development of 2017’s Mass Effect Andromeda, which caused further trouble for Anthem, as many were pulled off of Anthem in order to work on fixing many of Andromeda’s issues post-release.
After a few months of delays to fix some of the most glaring bugs and issues, Anthem’s first piece of post-release content, Cataclysm, was released to a fairly positive reception in August of 2019. The following month, however, BioWare released a statement saying that Cataclysm wouldn’t be receiving a follow-up, and instead the developer would be focusing on “seasonal updates” to work more on fixing more core elements of the game first.
Those “seasonal updates” then turned into a full blown “reinvention” of Anthem in February of 2020. BioWare’s then-General Manager, Casey Hudson, released a statement saying that the studio wanted to focus on changing the fundamentals of Anthem’s core gameplay, including overhauling the loot and progression systems, instead of just adding more content.
In May, it was revealed that only 30 developers are currently working on Anthem and are testing out different things that could fix Anthem. There have a few posts to BioWare’s blog on changes the small team are testing out, like a possible revamp to Anthem‘s skill tree system, but none of the already few changes BioWare has mentioned have actually been implemented into the game. It’s unknown when this revamp would release or what form it would even take, but the silence around is suggests that BioWare’s other projects likely take precedent.
BioWare’s first priority at the moment is getting the Mass Effect: Legendary Edition remaster out the door. And while remasters don’t typically require as much staff, the effort being put into remastering the Mass Effect trilogy is considerable. More than just updating texture resolutions, BioWare is changing controls, UI, character models, lighting, camera placings, gameplay balancing, and more.
And that is not the only Mass Effect project happening either. The next entry in the Mass Effect franchise was officially announced last December. The game is still likely in pre-production, but that may change after Legendary Edition and BioWare’s most pressing release are completed. If Mass Effect wasn’t enough for fans of this franchise, then Dragon Age 4 is in the works.
After its own tumultuous start, Dragon Age 4 has begun to pick up momentum. There was silence around it for a full year, but BioWare is seemingly and slowly becoming more forward with it. Its release is likely still far off, but if anything, that’s more concerning for Anthem. BioWare is teasing and testing the waters with DA4 material, which is odd, it seems, for Anthem.
The work on Mass Effect: Legendary Edition is likely nearly complete as it nears its May 14 release date, and then Dragon Age will most certainly be BioWare’s next priority, having revealed a new story trailer in December at The Game Awards. When both of those projects are complete, it would make sense for BioWare to strike while the iron is hot thanks to Legendary Edition renewing interest in the Mass Effect series and focus on Mass Effect 5 next. But maybe that project will allow BioWare to return to Anthem.
Hopefully, that 30-person team left to solve Anthem’s issues is still mostly intact and will have the answers by the time the aforementioned games are finished, and then BioWare can give Anthem the attention it needs to reinvent it and put the game’s checkered past behind it.
Dragon Age 4 is in development.
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