Anthem 2.0 Has Officially Been Scrapped Due to COVID-19

It's been just over a year since BioWare decided to make the ambitious lunge to try and resurrect Anthem. Twelve months of devotion to the survival of the multiplayer game — all in the hopes that redemption could be claimed after a rocky launch back in 2019. With its slew of bugs and mediocre scores, it wasn't exactly BioWare's ideal post-launch party. And yet, with a team of loyal subjects backing the game from the Austin studio, a future was carved in stone for the ambitious RPG. Until today, of course. Now, we're left to witness the ship capsize — with BioWare leaving the helm to sail other vessels.

Due to the ongoing work restrictions over the global pandemic, the Austin studio has decided to officially pull the plug on the overhaul of Anthem. That means that, although looking somewhat positive a few months back, Anthem 2.0 will no longer be in development.

Of course, this doesn't come as a major surprise to some — seeing as progress has been halted several times before due to the COVID-19 situation. Only, fans of the online game have been crossing fingers over a potential revival of the work schedule since the announcement was made last year. Though, that no longer seems to be the case.

Anthem received a spool of mediocre reviews after its 2019 launch.

BioWare director Christian Dailey wrote:

“2020 was a year unlike any other,” he said. “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.”

In light of this, the team behind some of the biggest RPG's in history will now be looking to other projects in their portfolio. Mass Effect, Dragon Age, and Star Wars: The Old Republic — to name just a few, will be receiving the full treatment moving forward. Sadly, the work on Anthem 2.0 will be canned, despite the twelve months of dedication from the small team of thirty. But we're hoping that Anthem eventually receives the tender loving care it deserves after a rather unpredictable show of events last year.

Anthem can still very much be played today — but that's not to say BioWare won't be pulling the plug entirely in the near future. While the developer has confirmed that the multiplayer game will still receive support, we're not sure exactly how long the servers will be live. So, in case you're desperate to see Anthem before the sparks die out — we'd strongly suggest you start raking in those points immediately. This might just be your last chance to experience what BioWare tried so hard to keep afloat.

Anthem released on PlayStation 4, Xbox One and Windows on January 25th 2019.