EA reportedly deciding the fate of Anthem later this week
Anthem Next is meant to include major changes to game systems, UI, and more
EA is reportedly making the final decision on the future of Anthem later this week, according to Bloomberg.
BioWare's Anthem famously launched back in 2019 to less-than-stellar reviews thanks in large part to clunky UI, unclear game mechanics, and excessive loading screens. Back in October of 2020, BioWare announced huge Anthem changes were on the horizon, including a complete retool of the Javelins and a new Artifacts system. Plans for the game's future were laid in a lengthy blog post from BioWare, months after we saw concept art featuring pirates and a revamped loot system for what the devs were calling Anthem 2.0.
Since then, Anthem 2.0 has come to be known as Anthem Next - but according to Bloomberg, it's unclear if EA wants to give developers the budget to make the revamped game happen. The author of last year's blog posts detailing the future of Anthem, Executive Producer Christian Dailey, left the Anthem dev team last December, and now EA will decide the game's fate.
According to "three people familiar with the matter" executives at EA will "review the latest version of Anthem NExt and decide whether to expand the team or abandon the project". The Anthem Next team reportedly consists of about 30 people, and the anonymous sources claim BioWAre will need to "at least triple that in order to produce new content and continue attempting to overhaul the game."
Bloomberg reached out to EA and was told the company won't comment on "rumor and speculation." We'll update this story accordingly, but for now, expect Anthem's fate to be decided sometime this week.
In case we don't get a new Anthem, check out our feature on the best MMORPG titles out there.
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Alyssa Mercante is an editor and features writer at GamesRadar based out of Brooklyn, NY. Prior to entering the industry, she got her Masters's degree in Modern and Contemporary Literature at Newcastle University with a dissertation focusing on contemporary indie games. She spends most of her time playing competitive shooters and in-depth RPGs and was recently on a PAX Panel about the best bars in video games. In her spare time Alyssa rescues cats, practices her Italian, and plays soccer.