Big ups and downs, big ups and downs...
Around this time last year, "Anthem", which was "badly reviewed" because of the poor quality of the game after the release, officially announced the decision that the game would be rebuilt, which was like a new cake, temporarily feeding the players who were still insisting on the game.
Many people will compare "Anthem" with "No Man's Deep Space" that has suffered the same experience before, because both of them have received negative reviews for quality problems when they first went online, but "No Man's Deep Space" is a good example - the developers have persistently updated the game to gradually improve, and finally cashed in on the haikou that was boasted.
Unfortunately, not every game that opens with "violent death" is "No Man's Deep Space".
A full year after announcing the remake of Anthem, players are waiting for bad news today — BioWare has terminated the development of Anthem 2.0.
In yesterday's game update log, Christian Dailey, studio director at BioWare Austin, posted this "very tough decision" (which seems to have become a fixed statement of bad news).
The logs briefly describe the reasons for the termination of the remake project, starting with the decrease in productivity. As we all know, the COVID-19 pandemic has affected a large number of game developers in the past year, and the inefficiency of online communication and remote work has caused many of last year's blockbusters to be postponed.
In order to reduce the workload when the remake was announced last year, the original quarterly update was cancelled by the authorities, but the "remake work" that was fully committed to it did not seem to have ushered in good results.
In addition, the lack of manpower is also one of the reasons why the project was stopped. Dailey said the studio needs to focus on both the next Dragon Age and Mass Effects, as well as providing high-quality updates for Star Wars: The Old Republic. Therefore, abandoning "Anthem 2.0", which is not highly anticipated by word of mouth and players, seems to be an inevitable result.
But in the middle of last year, the development progress of "Anthem 2.0" seemed to be normal. At that time, Dailey often shared the game's updates and design drawings on Twitter, which made people feel that playing 2.0 was not a distant thing.
Art drawing of the new faction "Blood Wind Pirates" released last July
But in 2021, "Anthem 2.0" turned the wind, and earlier this month, foreign media revealed that EA executives were discussing whether to abandon the project. The game is currently being developed at about 30 people, but according to Bloomberg, that number needs to be "at least tripled" to continue creating new content for it.
Now, the outcome of the discussion seems to be clear at a glance, and after a year, "Anthem" has not been able to embark on the path of "No Man's Deep Space".
Dailey concluded with a statement terminating development: "I know this will disappoint players who love Anthem and want to see us progress. Players were really disappointed, and soon after the BioWare official announcement, there were thousands of comments, and most of the comments can be summarized as a famous quote from Chinese fans:
"rnm, refund the money!"