EA kills Anthem Next: Here's what that means for the current game

EA kills Anthem NEXT: Here's what that means for the current game
(Image credit: BioWare)

Anthem was among the most anticipated and now most disappointing games of all time, and while poor launches have turned into success stories before, EA has decided to kill Anthem Next.

Christian Dailey, the executive producer at BioWare, posted a blog officially announcing the team's departure from the project. The team will be shifting its focus to helping other BioWare teams that are working on games like Dragon Age. As far as Anthem is concerned, the live service will continue to run, but we won't see any updates to the game.

What happened to Anthem Next

For those who may not have been following Anthem, a relatively small team at BioWare has been working on a full gameplay overhaul that would make the game feel closer to what it was advertised before it launched.

"Game development is hard," Dailey said. "Decisions like these are not easy. Moving forward, we need to laser focus our efforts as a studio and strengthen the next Dragon Age, and Mass Effect titles while continuing to provide quality updates to Star Wars: The Old Republic."

Unfortunately, the decision was made to ditch Anthem Next, throwing away the game's potential future. For context, we have seen games come back from the brink before, like No Man's Sky. It was a mess when it launched, but now it's one of the best multiplayer games around.

"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," Dailey says. "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."

It's definitely an upsetting turn for the game's future, as the sneak peeks of Anthem Next looked like it had the potential to bring players back to the game. 

Rami Tabari
Editor

Rami Tabari is an Editor for Laptop Mag. He reviews every shape and form of a laptop as well as all sorts of cool tech. You can find him sitting at his desk surrounded by a hoarder's dream of laptops, and when he navigates his way out to civilization, you can catch him watching really bad anime or playing some kind of painfully difficult game. He’s the best at every game and he just doesn’t lose. That’s why you’ll occasionally catch his byline attached to the latest Souls-like challenge.