After Anthem's disappointing launch and dwindling player numbers, BioWare decided to put all updates on hold in order to rework both the gameplay and progression systems from the ground up. Unfortunately, it seems that may have been too big of a task, even for a studio as experienced as BioWare. As such, I'm sad to say that development on Anthem has now been officially canceled.

"In the spirit of transparency and closure we wanted to share that we’ve made the difficult decision to stop our new development work on Anthem (aka Anthem NEXT)," reads the brief announcement. "We will, however, continue to keep the Anthem live service running as it exists today."

"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."

"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. To the Anthem community, thank you for your passion and creativity. Your feedback and suggestions most certainly help shape the team’s direction, and on a personal note, your kindness and encouragement were much needed last year."

While there is nothing we can do to save Anthem at this point, the one bit of good news I do have to share is that this whole mess has made BioWare seriously reconsider how they design their games. In other words, and if the rumors are true, Dragon Age 4 will not be a 'games-as-a-service' type of gig like previously stated, but rather a fully fledged singleplayer RPG, which is something that definitely plays into BioWare's strengths.

Whatever the case may be, I'll make sure to let you know once BioWare releases some more details. Until then, I'll leave you with Anthem's original cinematic trailer, for old times' sake. Enjoy!