Anthem NEXT Isn’t Going to Happen, Anthem Live Server Will Continue Running for the Ten People Still Playing

Bioware’s Christian Dailey has shared a blog post announcing that development on the revamped Anthem, Anthem NEXT, has been canceled. The company plans to keep Anthem’s live services still running for those who are still playing.

Anthem NEXT was meant to improve the game that suffered performance and gameplay issues as a restructuring of the game. Since Anthem’s launch, the studio has released a few updates with extra content and balance, but the NEXT version of the game will not happen.

You can read the details as posted:

During the development we’ve provided updates revealing some of the team’s work through blog posts and conversations with you on social media and it’s been inspiring for us to see the positive reactions and feedback. I’ve been incredibly proud of the work the team has been doing, and excited to see and play each new build of the experience.

2020 was a year unlike any other however and while we continue to make progress against all our game projects at BioWare, working from home during the pandemic has had an impact on our productivity and not everything we had planned as a studio before COVID-19 can be accomplished without putting undue stress on our teams.

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. 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.

Game development is hard. 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.

Anthem is available now for PlayStation 4, Xbox One, and PC.