BioWare today officially announced that their upcoming refresh of Anthem, also called Anthem Next, was ceasing. Development resources are being funneled to BioWare's other projects, including the next Dragon Age and Mass Effect titles, as well as helping out with updates to their MMO, Star Wars: The Old Republic.
In an announcement posted to the BioWare blog, Anthem executive producer Chrstian Dailey broke the news, stating that new development work on Anthem would be stopping.
"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."
As such, development on Anthem is ceasing, with Dailey stating that studio efforts would be "laser focused" on their other IP, including the next Dragon Age and Mass Effect titles, as well as Star Wars: The Old Republic's updates.
Dailey also cites the 2020 Covid-19 pandemic has being a factor in development of Anthem, stating that the pandemic situation had an "impact on our productivity."
"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."
Anthem isn't shutting down, as Dailey mentioned it will be transitioning as a live service that continues to run as it does today. However, given the cost of servers and development in this industry, it stands to question how long Electronic Arts will keep the Javelin-flying shooter running and instead pump those resources as well into the next BioWare game.
