Back in February, ANTHEM developer BioWare revealed that an overhaul of the game was in the works. Touted as "a more substantial reinvention than an update or expansion" by general manager Casey Hudson, it's been months since we've heard anything more about ANTHEM's future.
The good news is that BioWare has broken the silence with a new blog post. The bad news is that the promised overhaul sounds like it's still a long, long way off. Studio director Christian Dailey writes: "The ANTHEM incubation team has kicked off and we are starting to validate our design hypotheses. Incubation is a term we use internally – it essentially means we are going back and experimenting/prototyping to improve on the areas where we believe we fell short and to leverage everything that you love currently about ANTHEM."
Dailey continues: "We are a small team – about 30-ish, earning our way forward as we set out to hit our first major milestone goals. Spoiler – this is going to be a longer process. And yes, the team is small but the whole point of this is to take our time and go back to the drawing board. And a small team gives us the agility a larger one can’t afford."
Of course, the ongoing coronavirus situation won't have helped expedite the process, but at least we've got some news on how things are going. Dailey also notes that the team wants to stay in regular communication with ANTHEM's audience going forward. Hopefully it all works out.
Are you waiting to see whether ANTHEM makes a return? Suit up in the comments section below.
[source blog.bioware.com, via gamesradar.com]
Comments 24
It'll be sold as an expansion lol.
Sack it off and get back on form with Dragon Age 4, BioWare.
So 15 years after launch Anthem might be worth playing
Geez just give it up already
While its cool that theyre still working on it this game is well beyond saving at this point. People point to FF14's rebirth but that at the least had some brand recognition attached to it in a way that Anthem absolutley does not. This game was released in such a broken state and is still very very barebones for the genre, they really should just put every ounce of time and effort into a brand new game imo. I say all that as someone who actually enjoyed some aspects of it and actually got the Platinum in it but I really dont think its prudent to try and revive this corpse.
Nope sorry, move on. Hopefully they can't mess up Dragon Age 4. Hopefully 🙏
As someone who never actually played the game, but was definitely curious, I'm excited to see how they might improve things. I imagine I'm not the only one who feels this way, which is probably what Bioware is banking on. But I totally get folks that want them to just bag it and work on Dragon Age 4 too...
The game bombed and this sounds like a huge waste of money for the company.
I think they missed the window to fix this game. There are some clear things that needed an overhaul right from the start, and they should've fixed those right away instead of waiting. The guns being way too similar / uninteresting loot, bullet sponge enemies, lack of live events, etc.
At this point, they'll need to make Anthem into an entirely new game to get people interested again, and everyone agrees that's not a good use of time or money!
Cool mech designs, nice gun play and flying mechanics are sublime. We would Just zip all over the place ripping everything apart.
It just needs tons of more content... a lot more than a 30 person team can ever hope to make.
Just give it to RESPAWN and have them make a new single player (or Story campaign co-op) game with the assets. Make more planets to visit like Jedi Fallen Order. Use PS5 to get rid of the load times
Those poor 30 workers. I doubt this will ever come out.
In incubation...or just a bad yoke?
To be honest this is a waste of time just accept defeat and make sure you don't mess up the next game you make. Not enough interest in anthem anymore to warrant all this work
@ApostateMage these are totally different teams. Why would SWTOR/ANTHEM team work on DA4?
@topic I’m still waiting for another reason to jump back in. I spent 400hours or so in the game, just because the core gameplay is so much fun.
I rather they take their time and just make sure they turn it into something great!
There are many players hoping for a good outcome. Most of us don’t play anymore, because there is nothing to do anymore, but it doesn’t mean we won’t jump back in the very first chance we get.
And I still don’t get all the hate this game gets from people who haven’t even played it in its current state. Pretty much everybody I see in reddit who bought it recently is positively surprised about the game. Despite it actually being quite a failure of a game.
@redd214 NMS is a far better comparison. A game that didn’t deliver what was promised, was told to be all lies. Sound familiar? And BioWare is a far larger team with a lot more resources. And it has a very strong core in its gameplay mechanics. Plus great characters and so far good world building. I see no reason why they wouldn’t succeed.
@redd214 Anthem is actually a pretty cool game if you'd played it. And I know it got potential of being a better game and better assets to certain things but for you to say that they basically should give up on a wonderful game is just so stupid and overthinking because a game like that you don't see everyday or at ALL and you outta be happy that there's a game even like that and should be routing for them other than doubting them.
@Erogers easy there cowboy. I did play it to the tune of 60ish hours, I was there from launch and like I mentioned even grinded out the platinum.
https://psnprofiles.com/trophies/8731-anthem/TAB-214
If you'd taken the time to decipher what I said, I did enjoy parts of the game. The flying, traversal, combat was terrific. Mission structure, story, progression, loot, and many other things were tragically undercooked though. Without even mentioning the long list of technical issues that plagued the game. I don't regret playing or buying it but at the same time in not blind to the fact that a ton of people were burned by this game.
I am routing for them, just in my opinion that time would be better spent moving onto a real Anthem 2.0 sequel and fixing the glaring problems rather than trying to put makeup on a zombie. Take care
@tatsumi good point NMS is in fact a more analogous situation. Sure it's possible for a comeback, I just think with the state of the game now, the overall perception of it, they would be better served putting all hands on deck in making a full on sequel. Just an opinion.
@Agramonte Just make a real campaing.
@redd214 okay first don't call me that😏 and second if that was the case like I said rather than doubting them start routing for them because everything you just told me sound like you had a pretty good experience with the game. So why so much doubt then? And want them to start fresh on a new game and forget about Anthem like It's not even that easy to just call it quites on a game because otherwise you wasted people time and money so I said what I said.
@Erogers Sorry bringing a terrible game with no content and scrapping the roadmap when it bombs no just no.
@Erogers cool bud, glad you enjoyed the game. Hope you got everything you wanted from it. Have a good one!
@Flaming_Kaiser WELLLP THAT SOUND LIKE A YOU PROBLEM HAVE FUNNNNNN!!
@redd214 Thanks! I sure did and I sure will good byee😊🖐
@redd214 While that would be great, it would enrage a lot of people.
Unless of course legacy players get a free copy and that info would stand on top of everything. The only way is to make it free for current players who helped them getting through all this mess.
But yeah, BioWare for now is even using the "NEXT" suffix just like NMS NEXT. I suppose at least internally they are using Anthem NEXT as the overhaul, analog to NMS.
@Agramonte I think you got a bit of a misunderstanding about the 30 man team. The 30 people are just there for prototyping the hypothetical ideas and designs they came up with since last year. They will create multiple prototypes, see what works, go back to the drawing board, rinse and repeat. Until the best parts and best vision prevails. And then they will ramp up production and have a lot more people working on it to be able to release it.
What I hope is that the community can get some early access to try out some of that prototyping and help making sure they build something the majority of the community wants.
This is practically the thing they have NOT done in those 6 years they "worked" on Anthem. So they are now going back and trying to develop the game the correct way.
Re-release sold as a ps5 game with updated visuals and new story. Reminds me of destiny here buy the full game then buy the full game dlc full price call it something else including collectors edition all over again then release it again with the previous dlc and the new dlc and full price again, abit much really.
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