There’s no denying that Anthem NEXT had a lot of promise, however, due to many reasons, EA and BioWare have canceled the massive overhaul to the game.
After months of silence, it’s official, BioWare is shutting down production on the long-awaited Anthem NEXT update. The long-awaited content drop would have brought the game to life in various new ways from new subclasses to how the loot system that itself actually worked.
In an official blog post, Anthem Executive Producer Christian Dailey revealed exactly what was going on and why Anthem NEXT was canceled, “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.”
The root cause behind it would be the COVID-19 pandemic, making it harder for their teams to meet the goals they need in order to make Anthem NEXT happen. Moving forward, Dailey revealed that their resources will be reallocated to both Dragon Age and Mass Effect projects. The studio, however, will keep the Anthem servers running so that fans can enjoy the game.
While it is saddening to many to see Anthem being left as it is, it doesn’t mean that they may not revisit the game in the future, but for the time being, they are moving on to other projects.
About the Writer(s):
Dustin is our native video game reviewer who has an appetite for anything that crosses the borders from across the big pond. His interest in JRPG’s, Anime, Handheld Gaming, and Pizza is insatiable. You can find him over on Twitter or Facebook today.