BioWare and EA Suspend Anthem Revision Development

BioWare and EA have stopped developing Anthem Next. BioWare says it will focus entirely on developing the upcoming Dragon Age and Mass Effect games. The current version of Anthem will remain playable online.

“In the spirit of transparency, we wanted to share that we have made the difficult decision to stop our new development work on Anthem,” producer Christian Daley wrote in a blog post. “However, we will continue to keep Anthem running as it is today.” Daley writes, among other things, that the outbreak of the new coronavirus and working from home had an impact on the productivity of BioWare developers.

Earlier this month there were rumors that publisher Electronic Arts would decide in the short term whether the revision of Anthem will be continued. BioWare announced in 2020 that 30 people are working on revamping the game, calling it a “long process.” Bloomberg reported in early February that this team is too small to make plans for Anthem Next come true. Anonymous sources involved in the overhaul said the team should be “at least tripled.”

BioWare states that the studio wants to focus its efforts on the next Dragon Age and Mass Effect games, while the developer also continues to update the Star Wars: The Old Republic mmo. BioWare has teased the arrival of Dragon Age 4 several times. On May 14, the developer will also release a remaster of the original Mass Effect trilogy. The studio will later release a new Mass Effect game, although few details are known about it yet.

Anthem was released in 2019 for PC, PS4 and Xbox One. The game was largely negatively received upon release. The development of Anthem took almost seven years, according to developers, although the production phase only started in the last 18 months. Studio staff reported that the game’s development was characterized by indecision, mismanagement, and technical difficulties due to Frostbite engine’s shortcomings.