Electronic Arts will decide the fate of Anthem in the near future, according to a report. The publisher will supposedly make a call on whether the campaign to reboot Anthem after its disappointing launch is still worth the effort or if it should be scrapped altogether.
According to Bloomberg, EA executives plan to review the latest version of Anthem this week. The project to revamp Anthem is currently being worked on by 30 people, but developer BioWare supposedly needs closer to 90 in order to finish reworking Anthem’s original gameplay and also add new content. So EA has to decide whether to invest that time and resources.
Anthem had a rocky launch–the game released with bugs that crashed PS4s, a section of the campaign that required unenjoyable farming, an update that briefly broke the game, and an unsatisfying loot acquisition loop. BioWare has been attempting to overhaul Anthem in hopes of a successful comeback, similar to Hello Games’ No Man’s Sky and Square Enix’s Final Fantasy XIV.
In GameSpot’s Anthem review, Kallie Plagge wrote, “Anthem has good ideas, but it struggles significantly with the execution. It’s a co-op game that works best with no one talking; it buries genuinely interesting character moments and puts its most incomprehensible story bits at the forefront; its combat is exciting until you get to the boss fights and find your wings have been clipped. Even the simple, exhilarating act of flying is frequently interrupted by the limitations of your javelin, and you never quite shake that feeling of disappointment–of knowing, throughout the good parts of Anthem, that you’ll inevitably come crashing back down.”
That said, it’s not all doom and gloom for BioWare–the developer has a few exciting new projects in the works. Mass Effect: Legendary Edition is a remaster of the Mass Effect trilogy, scheduled to launch for Xbox One, PS4, and PC this May. BioWare is also currently working on new installments for Mass Effect and Dragon Age, tentatively titled Mass Effect 4 and Dragon Age 4, respectively.
GameSpot may get a commission from retail offers.
