A few weeks back, we reported on credible rumors that BioWare was revisiting whether or not the Anthem reboot was still happening. BioWare had previously abandoned the game’s planned seasonal content schedule in favor of a major redesign, but it spent 2020 losing on key developer after another, including the reboot’s studio director, BioWare’s general manager, and executive producer.
Well, I’m sorry to report that it’s game over for the reboot after all. BioWare’s Christian Dailey made the announcement today.
“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),” he writes. “We will, however, continue to keep the Anthem live service running as it exists today.”
“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.”
Dailey says BioWare will work to “strengthen the next Dragon Age, and Mass Effect titles while continuing to provide quality updates to Star Wars: The Old Republic.” Well, there’s a silver lining. Our sympathies lie with the 30-person reboot team that’ll now presumably be shifted to those other projects.
Get caught up on Anthem’s ordeal:
