The next overhaul update should save (or not) Anthem. And a few years after its publication, we could have welcomed this gesture … well, ultimately it will never happen, and BioWare takes the opportunity to explain itself in a long blog post.
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Hymn is dead? Definitely, this is what we can read between the lines of this long blog post posted on the studio’s official website. It is Christian Dailey, Executive Producer of BioWare, who stands by to properly explain to us the reasons for this “licking” of the game:
In a spirit of transparency and closure, we made the difficult decision to stop our new development work on Anthem (also known as Anthem NEXT). However, we will continue to offer the wireless service that we have today. Since the launch of Anthem, the team has worked hard to continuously improve the game. It has released several updates that have made various improvements and introduced new content to play with.
Towards the end of 2019, we stepped up these efforts and started working on a more fundamental restructuring of the game. During development, we provided updates that revealed some of the team’s work through blog posts and conversations with you on social media, and it was inspiring for us to see the positive feedback and comments. I was incredibly proud of the team’s work and was excited to see and play every new build in the experience.
However, 2020 was not a year like any other, and while we continue to make progress on all of our gaming projects at BioWare, working from home during the pandemic has reduced our productivity and everything we had planned for it as a studio before COVID- influenced. 19 cannot be achieved without placing undue strain on our teams.
I know it will be disappointing to the Anthem player community, who were so excited to see the improvements we have been working on. It’s also disappointing to the team that did a brilliant job. For me personally, Anthem brought me to BioWare, and the past two years have been some of the most challenging and rewarding experiences of my career. Game development is difficult. Decisions like these are not easy to make. Going forward, we need to focus our efforts as a studio and bolster the upcoming Dragon Age and Mass Effect titles as we continue to deliver high quality Star Wars: The Old Republic updates.
Thank you for your passion and creativity. Your comments and suggestions have certainly helped shape the direction of the team, and more personally, your kindness and encouragement have been greatly appreciated over the past year. We urge you to stay safe and be kind to one another. Stronger alone, stronger together.
In short, even if a ministry remains active in the game, we can say that it is still between life and death.