Earlier this month, Bloomberg reported that EA would hold a meeting to decide how to proceed with BioWare's troubled online multiplayer game, Anthem. In an update today, EA has decided it will pull the plug on the action RPG, and BioWare will refocus its efforts on other projects in the Mass Effect and Dragon Age universe.
Anthem executive producer Christian Dailey penned a letter to Anthem's community today, explaining the rationale behind EA's decision. Dailey begins by noting that current Anthem live services will continue to remain up and running as they exist today, but the ambitious rework, Anthem Next, will cease development.
The decision comes as Dailey explains not everything came down to just the difficulty of reworking the title, but the troubles that also come with working through the Covid-19 pandemic, "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."
Dailey noted that Anthem's development and the work in the past two years has made for some of the most challenging and rewarding times throughout his career. It's a disappointing conclusion, but one that had to be made to prioritize other projects and team health. Dailey continued his message with, "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."
Anthem has been troubled since BioWare launched it over two years ago. The studio put seasons on hold as the team shifted focus to work on the Next version, but troubling news continued to plague the title as reports mentioned Anthem only had 30 people working on the overhaul.
The Anthem news comes just on the heels of Mass Effect reveals last December, and a new Legendary Edition of the iconic trilogy. While the news is unfortunate for Anthem, the studio will still continue with its staple franchises.