Anthem - Development stopped

HiddenX

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The new development work on Anthem has been stopped:

Anthem Update

Friends,

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.

Since Anthem's launch, the team has been working hard to continually improve the game, releasing multiple updates that brought with them a variety of improvements and introduced new content to play. Towards the end of 2019 we expanded on that effort and started working on a more fundamental restructure of the game.

During the development we've provided updates revealing some of the team's work through blog posts and conversations with you on social media and it's been inspiring for us to see the positive reactions and feedback. I've been incredibly proud of the work the team has been doing, and excited to see and play each new build of the experience.

2020 was a year unlike any other however and while we continue to make progress against all our game projects at BioWare, working from home during the pandemic has had an impact on our productivity and not everything we had planned as a studio before COVID-19 can be accomplished without putting undue stress on our teams.

I know this will be disappointing to the community of Anthem players who have been excited to see the improvements we've been working on. It's also disappointing for the team who were doing brilliant work. And for me personally, Anthem is what brought me to BioWare, and the last two years have been some of the most challenging and rewarding experiences of my career.

Game development is hard. Decisions like these are not easy. Moving forward, we need to laser 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.

To the Anthem community, thank you for your passion and creativity. Your feedback and suggestions most certainly help shape the team's direction, and on a personal note, your kindness and encouragement were much needed last year.

Please stay safe and be kind to each other. Strong alone, stronger together.

Christian (Dailey)
Thanks for the info, porcozaur!

More information.
 
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Meh..
 
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One of the only smart decisions BioWare has made recently. Anthem sucks hard. They should attempt to focus on what they used to be good at, and see how that goes.
 
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I am a big fan of Bioware single-player games, even the latest Mass Effect Andromeda, but I have no interest in Anthem so I am glad that they are stopping development (though only if it means they can spend more time developing single-player games).
 
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Well, it's worth noting that this decision (and Anthem's poor sales) sort of has a connection to other EA properties... notably the forthcoming Dragon Age 4, which was supposedly going to have a significant online component and now, maybe not. See this Ars article.
 
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Yikes… Game companies should be doing so well right now, with everyone trapped in their house for the last year. All we're seeing is a series of trainwrecks.

There does seem to be a rash of development disasters. One of the low key ones that never comes up here is what's been going on with Failbetter and Sunless Skies. They've been planning a console release/last major patch for months and months now and they can't make it work. It's been in certification for at least 2 months.
 
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Well, it's worth noting that this decision (and Anthem's poor sales) sort of has a connection to other EA properties… notably the forthcoming Dragon Age 4, which was supposedly going to have a significant online component and now, maybe not. See this Ars article.

Just adding a direct link to the twit from Jason Schreier: https://twitter.com/jasonschreier/status/1365005940739743745

If this is true, I suppose some celebrations are in order.

Thank you for existing, Anthem?! :)
 
Well, it's worth noting that this decision (and Anthem's poor sales) sort of has a connection to other EA properties… notably the forthcoming Dragon Age 4, which was supposedly going to have a significant online component and now, maybe not. See this Ars article.

This is why I root hard for the success of single-player games I enjoy, even if they are rough around the edges, so that game companies will put more effort into good single-player games.
 
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LOL, it's sad that it takes disasters like this to show game companies not every game needs multiplayer/co-op shoved in to it.
The last couple of years saw Bioware losing many of its veterans, (who thinks due to EAs GAAS obsession?) and now populated by a new crop who probably have all the wrong skills for compelling single player RPGs.
The amount of money pissed away that could have given us a couple of decent quality Bioware adventures by now is really depressing..
 
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Good news.

It would really have been a bugger if DA4 was mainly multiplayer. Imho that would have been the nail in the coffin for BioWare as a SP RPG studio. So now they're still on life support. I hope they make a full recovery with DA4.
 
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Yikes… Game companies should be doing so well right now, with everyone trapped in their house for the last year. All we're seeing is a series of trainwrecks.

Game development is probably more difficult right now for the same reason.
 
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Raise your hand if you're surprised....Well not me I predicted this on the games release. Though reading the replies of last few die-hard fans is good for entertainment.
 
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Just adding a direct link to the twit from Jason Schreier: https://twitter.com/jasonschreier/status/1365005940739743745

If this is true, I suppose some celebrations are in order.

Thank you for existing, Anthem?! :)
Sounds like BioWare wasted years of development already. As the last version of Dragon Age was rebooted to become a live service, now they pivoted in the other direction.

Don't get me wrong I love the news just find it hilarious.:lol:
 
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I hope future BioWare titles are more successful. I know I'd love for another Mass Effect or Dragon Age to turn out well, and they're probably making the right call to focus on them going forward, but at this point you have to wonder how much of the teams that made those previous games even exists anymore.

I think some people are erroneously believing that DA4 is automatically going to be better because of this. The issues with the more recent DA and ME games had nothing to do with including multiplayer though. They just weren't very good games (imo) for multiple reasons.

You're right about the development teams. If you compare their current team(s) to who was there for ME1 and DA: Origins, there aren't a whole lot of people left.
 
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