EA, BioWare cancel Anthem's Sweeping Overhaul

Source: Ars Technica

The story of EA and BioWare's beleaguered action-RPG Anthem has apparently ended. According to an official BioWare blog post, the ambitious jetpack-combat game's "overhaul" project is dead. The staff that had been assigned to rebuild the game into better shape has been reassigned to work on other BioWare projects, particularly Dragon Age 4 and the next Mass Effect game.

From what we saw in the game's March 2019 launch version, EA and BioWare clearly intended for the game to receive regularly updated content, but negative reviews (including my own) made clear that BioWare needed to go back to the drawing board. Despite some good ideas and fun flight controls, Anthem's basic core needed serious touching-up before we'd return to the game.

No more singing of the Anthem

Then-general manager Casey Hudson made a February 2020 statement acknowledging those criticisms. After listing aspects of the game that needed work, he offered a pledge to fans: that BioWare would complete "fundamental work... to bring out the full potential of the experience... specifically working to reinvent the core gameplay loop with clear goals, motivating challenges, and progression with meaningful rewards—while preserving the fun of flying and fighting in a vast science-fantasy setting."

However, 10 months later, Hudson departed BioWare, as did Dragon Age 4 executive producer Mark Darrah. BioWare announced this news with assurances that projects like Dragon Age 4 would continue apace, but none of that day's blog posts, including one penned by Hudson, included any formal assurance that "Anthem Next" was in similarly good shape.

Two weeks ago, Bloomberg's Jason Schreier reported that Anthem's "reinvention" development was under serious review by EA executives who would decide whether the project would continue or die. According to Schreier, BioWare's pitch to EA would be to expand its 30-person staff to a number closer to 90 in order to match the work's scope. From the sound of BioWare's Wednesday announcement, that reported meeting didn't go well for Anthem.

That reassigned team will certainly have its hands full with other projects, particularly the previously announced sequels to Dragon Age and Mass Effect. As of press time, EA only has one announced launch date for an upcoming BioWare game: the remastered Mass Effect Legendary Edition, slated to launch on PCs and consoles May 14.

Quote from Rozysebelas

lul eaplay are dirt cheap like 2 weeks ago at steam so i bought it.but playing older dragon age and mass effect games just make me hate ea even more & the fact i still play skate 3 on my old ps3 regularly is just make me sad

Why keep playing Skate 3 if it makes you sad lel

Quote from Rozysebelas

back when they release Dragon age,mass effect,skate, mirror edge,dead space back to back . but now i dont even remember the last good ea game other than apex .
idk what they're thinking sometime they hit the mark after continuous decline like NFS 2015 but they make a u turn and decide NFS payback is a good idea . but thank god NFS heat is goin to the right track again and hot pursuit remaster coz that my favorite nfs game to see the online is so populated makes me happy.
i just hope the new NFS2021,dragon age 4,and skate 4 gonna be good .
.

Yeah EA was on a roll throughout the 00s. Even their casual games like Plants vs. Zombies were excellent. They also published a few good Lord of the Rings game like Battle for Middle-earth and as far as Need for Speed is concerned, they peaked at Underground 1 + 2, the 2005 version of Most Wanted. Even their lesser known games were decent. Pandemic, before their demise, gave us Mercenaries 2 and The Saboteur. Def Jam was also decent. The revamped Medal of Honor which took place in the modern era was fine, at least the first one. EA took risks even if it didn't pay off with Medal of Honor: Airborne or even Army of Two that tried to add something different to the standard shooter formula.

As far as the last decade is concerned, I still liked some of the titles they produced.

- Titanfall - The number of guns and maps are anemic however the shooting, traversal and movement, and the titans all feel great

- Titanfall 2 - Probably has one of the most solid singleplayer FPS experience in recent memory

- Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order - By Respawn, same folks who did Titanfall.

- Battlefield Bad Company 2

- A Way Out - It's a hoot if you have a friend with that you can play with

- Command & Conquer Remastered - Technically it still counts, because they could have screwed the remaster up (e.g. Blizzard with Warcraft III: Reforged)

- Dragon Age: Inquisition - A hill I would die on. Sure there are grind-y bits but as far as characters and story is concerned, I still think it was pretty good. 'Til now after almost 7 years, the graphics hold up very well.

I'm hopeful with the next Need for Speed title since EA bought Codemasters. While they said that Codemasters will operate independently, their expertise with racing games could most probably called up to help with designing the game.

Quote from Rozysebelas

i'm a huge DA fan and the first time i play inquisition is just overwhelm coz it's a singleplayer game but alot of the element came from an online game . like too many stats the war table u have to wait like hours. and the main story is kinda short they just gateway it with power from the war tabble to progress to make it feel even longer . and the PC port is just an afterthought coz when i launch it plays horrible on PC . the tactical camera became sucks . even tho i like the story alot especially the mage time travel thing .
i don't play online game alone/solo . i play with my online friends that's why my gametime with titanfall,BF etc is below 20 hours coz they just kinda replace each other(titanfall 1 to titanfall 2 , BF to the next squel) .i dont like the idea a game server gonna be dead in a year or two. i only play online game game that not gonna have a replacement/sequel like csgo,valorant,apex. and some mmo like BDO .

Titanfall 2 was a great improvement from the first Titanfall and even if you are only after the single-player experience, it's far and above what most other FPS at the time of its launch were offering. Respawn actually made an effort to make the story engaging. And the its hardly an annual thing considering for the last 7 years, there have only been two Titanfall games excluding Apex Legends as it is more of a spinoff rather than a direct sequel.

I don't know about Dragon Age Inquisition on PC being an afterthought. I had it from launch and never had any technical issues which is probably part of the reason I looked at it fondly compared to the other launch titles within the period like Assassin's Creed Unity or even the year after like Mortal Kombat X, Fallout 4, Arkham Knight, or even The Witcher III (most have forgotten The Witcher III on PC was a judderfest in the first few months). I don't even have a top of the line rig but the game played flawlessly on ultra. Granted, I do agree that the controls took a bit of time to get used to.