Anthem, Electronic Art's third-person shooter, was a departure from BioWare's traditional RPG franchises like Dragon Age and Mass Effect. Developed by a former BioWare developer, the game featured four distinct Iron Man style suits called Javelins and a shared world that could be played solo or in groups. Although fans enjoyed the combat and flight mechanics, the game received mixed reviews due to technical issues and uninspired loot. Despite BioWare's efforts to improve the game with post-launch content like Cataclysms and seasonal updates, it ultimately failed to meet fan expectations and was discontinued after only a year.
One former BioWare employee, Ian Saterdalen, found some positives in the development of Anthem despite its disappointing ultimate fate. In a thread highlighting the positive aspects of the game, Saterdalen shared that they learned a lot from working on the project, and acknowledged that it wasn't ready after just 15 months of development time. However, Saterdalen remains optimistic about a potential sequel, believing that the team's lessons learned would have made it a great game.
Saterdalen's comments caught the attention of the community, with many fans expressing surprise at the short development time and the extreme working conditions the team faced. Despite the disappointment surrounding Anthem, some fans even speculated about what the IP could look like under different leadership, such as Respawn.
There is speculation that BioWare may revisit Anthem in the future as the Anthem 2.0 project was making progress before it was halted. The development team at BioWare Austin attempted to revamp key mechanics and provided regular updates on their progress. Despite the promising changes, the COVID-19 pandemic and a renewed focus on Mass Effect 4 and Dragon Age: Dreadwolf led to EA cancelling the rework. Anthem is currently available on PC, PS4, and Xbox One.
