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-Anthemplayers, there’s relatively little content that might persuade a player to return. And for current players, the appeal has to be dwindling. But whileAnthemmay 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,BioWaremay indeed be slowly puttingAnthemto rest. But only so that it may rise anew. According to Schreier, BioWare is planning an “overhaul” ofAnthemthat 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.
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Possibilities being considered forAnthem’s future apparently include several different approaches, which can be compared to other games that went through similar reinventions. For example,No Man’s Skyissued several major updates over a span of years.Destinyreinvented itself in a major expansion,Taken King. And Square Enix literally remade the entireFinal Fantasy 14game andrelaunched it asA Realm Reborn. A newAnthemcould “take a lot of forms.”
It’s difficult to imagine such a decision by BioWare as being controversial, so long as those who boughtAnthemare 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 withAnthemwere immediate following launch and only grew with the game’s slow post-launch content cadence and eventual disappointingCataclysm update.
While the exact nature of BioWare’s plans aren’t exactly clear, Kotaku’s sources remain adamant about one thing - thatAnthemstill 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 theAnthemrevamp plans. Given that BioWare is currently working on the nextDragon Agegame, is apparently starting up anewMass Effecttitle, and is still working onStar Wars: The Old Republic, too, it seems like BioWare’s not wasting any time working toward the company’s future games.
Anthemis available now on PC, PS4, and Xbox One.
