Anthem Next is Canceled, Bioware Giving Up

We reported earlier this month that EA was apparently in the process of deciding if Bioware’s Anthem was worth trying to salvage, or if they were going to just give up on it entirely. Well, enough time has passed and a decision has been made, and while it’s not a surprising one coming from EA, it is still a bit disappointing: Anthem is, functionally, no more.

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.

So while Anthem will stick around as a live-service game — and may enjoy the odd update or patch — the restructure the game so desperately needs has been thrown out. This was attributed to a number of factors, including the pandemic and other, more lucrative projects that Bioware would rather be working on, but in the end, the results are the same. Anthem Next is now Anthem Never.

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....

...To the Anthem community, thank you for your passion and creativity. Your feedback and suggestions most certainly help shape the team’s direction, and on a personal note, your kindness and encouragement were much needed last year.

Like I said, this isn’t exactly surprising, but in some ways, I’m glad they out and said it rather than strung us along, like other studios might be tempted to do. It’s not much, but it’s better than holding out for false hope.