The future of Bioware’s Anthem seems to hang in the balance this coming week. According to a new report that has surfaced from Bloomberg, publisher Electronic Arts is going to decide if it wants BioWare to push forward with a revamp of the third-person action title within the next few days. Depending on the decision, it could swing the fate of the future of the Anthem franchise in its entirety.
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Over the course of 2020, a small team at BioWare was quietly working on what was called “Anthem Next”, which is essentially a new iteration of the original game. The idea behind this initiative was to soft-reboot the game by taking into account the litany of criticisms and pieces of feedback that players have provided since its launch in 2019. However, one of the main developers on this new direction for Anthem ended up leaving BioWare last year, which has now led to EA deciding whether or not the project is worth pursuing.
Depending on the direction EA decides to go in, it could spell the end for Anthem as we know it. The game hasn’t received any major updates in months at this point, with the entire future of the current game hinging on this “Next” project. That being said, if EA doesn’t greenlight this project, there’s a chance that Anthem as a whole could die out. The likelihood of BioWare or EA returning to the property in the future given its dismal reception seems quite low. There’s surely more at stake here that is being decided other than this one development project.
Even though it’s not ideal, in my own estimation, it doesn’t make much sense for BioWare to continue trying to retool Anthem at this point. The game launched over two years ago and BioWare as a whole has since moved on to bigger projects. Dragon Age 4, a new Mass Effect game, and the Mass Effect Legendary Edition are all currently in the works at the company alone. Not to mention, with the arrival of next-gen consoles in late 2020, to try and revamp a game that is tied to last-gen hardware with an audience that doesn’t seem to be around in a major capacity any longer just seems outlandish. While an overhaul of some sort also made sense at one point, the time for such a venture seems to have come and gone.
For better or worse, the story on Anthem seems to be written. Perhaps EA will decide another course of action later this week, but that remains to be seen. Whenever we know what the publisher has decided on, we’ll be sure to let you know here at ComicBook.com.
So do you want to see Anthem be rebooted in this manner? Or are you fine with BioWare moving on from it? Let me know either down in the comments or over on Twitter at @MooreMan12.
