Credit: Unsplash
Time to hang up your Javelins.
When Electronic Arts and BioWare released Anthem back in 2019, it was poised to be the biggest thing since sliced bread, the live service multiplayer game that would finally knock Destiny off its perch. It didn’t do that. With numerous launch bugs and complaints of boring story and lackluster endgame, to say Anthem tripped out of the starting gate would be an understatement. EA attempted to overhaul the game’s core systems in late 2019, but that was right around when the pandemic started, which complicated matters even further. As of yesterday, it’s officially gotten to be too much of a bother for EA.
Anthem‘s executive producer Christian Dailey announced last night that EA and BioWare have officially made the decision to pull the plug on all current and future development.
“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,” he wrote.
EA chief studios officer Laura Miele reflects on Anthem's shuttering, saying that the company "believed in Anthem every step of the way." pic.twitter.com/66I1EQYkrC
— IGN (@IGN) February 25, 2021
“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. And for me personally, Anthem is what brought me to BioWare, and the last two years have been some of the most challenging and rewarding experiences of my career.
“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‘s servers will remain up for an indeterminate period for those who still play the game. Should EA decide to close out the servers, though, that’ll be the end of it entirely.
