Anthem, BioWare's live service sci-fi action shooter, is not in the best of shape. While the game does continue to receive irregular updates and, as the newly begun Season of Skulls shows, hold events from time to time, calling it a "live service on life support" wouldn't be inaccurate. For ex-Anthem players, there's relatively little content that might persuade a player to return. And for current players, the appeal has to be dwindling. But while Anthem may appear in a bad place, BioWare may have big plans for the game in the future.
According to a report from Kotaku's Jason Schreier, BioWare may indeed be slowly putting Anthem to rest. But only so that it may rise anew. According to Schreier, BioWare is planning an "overhaul" of Anthem that is being internally talked about as "Anthem 2.0" or "Anthem Next." However, as interesting as the concept is, it also sounds like BioWare is still very early in the process. So early that it hasn't even decided how big of a revamp it will be or how it might be distributed.
Possibilities being considered for Anthem's future apparently include several different approaches, which can be compared to other games that went through similar reinventions. For example, No Man's Sky issued several major updates over a span of years. Destiny reinvented itself in a major expansion, Taken King. And Square Enix literally remade the entire Final Fantasy 14 game and relaunched it as A Realm Reborn. A new Anthem could "take a lot of forms."
It's difficult to imagine such a decision by BioWare as being controversial, so long as those who bought Anthem are rewarded to some degree when the relaunch occurs. If anything, the more dramatic the changes made by BioWare, the better it's likely to be received. Frustrations with Anthem were immediate following launch and only grew with the game's slow post-launch content cadence and eventual disappointing Cataclysm update.
While the exact nature of BioWare's plans aren't exactly clear, Kotaku's sources remain adamant about one thing - that Anthem still has a future at the company. Apparently "dozens if not hundreds" of developers between BioWare's two studios, in Edmonton and Austin, are working on the Anthem revamp plans. Given that BioWare is currently working on the next Dragon Age game, is apparently starting up a new Mass Effect title, and is still working on Star Wars: The Old Republic, too, it seems like BioWare's not wasting any time working toward the company's future games.
Anthem is available now on PC, PS4, and Xbox One.
Source: Kotaku