Live services remain, but the game will not be updated further.
Any future development on Anthem or its potential reboot, Anthem Next, has stopped, developer BioWare said in a statement 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). We will, however, continue to keep the Anthem live service running as it exists today,” BioWare began.
“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.”
Rather than continue work on Anthem, BioWare will instead focus on updates to Star Wars The Old Republic alongside new Mass Effect and Dragon Age titles.
Anthem originally launched in February 2019 to lackluster reviews, with our own Hamish Lindsay saying, “it definitely doesn’t execute the looter shooter genre very well suggesting that maybe it wasn’t always destined to be one.” BioWare pledged to rework the title — as Anthem Next — to address those types of issues. Today, we’ve found out that’s not to be.
Anthem is currently available on Windows PC, Xbox One and PS4.
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