Sources claim that Electronic Arts will convene this week to decide the future of Anthem, Bioware’s troubled Destiny-like adventure game.
Bloomberg’s Jason Schreier reported Monday that EA executives will be shown progress on “Anthem Next,” the overhauled version of the game, and decide whether they will invest to expand the 30-person team, or drop it altogether. Schreier’s anonymous sources claim the team would need to be tripled in order to put out new content while also overhauling the existing game. Whether such an investment would be sound, remains to be seen.
After stumbling out of the gate in February 2019, and failing to live up to its hype, Anthem has tried to course-correct and find its audience. The game puts players inside mighty exoskeleton suits called Javelins and pits them against exotic threats in a desperate bid for survival. The concept is similar to Destiny 2 and Warframe, but wildly different from the studio’s hit RPG franchises like Mass Effect and Dragon Age, and Bioware has struggled to carve out its own niche in the space for the last two years—Schreier detailed Anthem’s troubled production in a 2019 expose. Dedicated social media channels for the game have been relatively quiet for the past year.
The departure of Executive Producer Christian Dailey may have further rocked the boat. Dailey had spearheaded development on Anthem Next until December, when he was reassigned to Dragon Age 4 following the departures of previous director Mark Darrah and Casey Hudson, two studio veterans.
According to blog posts by Dailey last summer, the team was focused on overhauling the loot and Javelin customization systems to make them less restrictive. Whether fans will get to see these changes in action will depend on the outcome of this week’s meetings.