Anthem: Bioware's next Mass Effect-like IP

[Baconeggcheese]

It's a big new IP, companies don't like investing in a new IP and then dropping that investment quickly. The stigma can be dealt with, plenty of games have successfully rebooted from failed/underwhelming launches like Division, Destiny, FO76, FFXIV etc.

Companies also don't like investing money in what they might view as a sinking ship. And this is now a 2 year old IP with a very very bad image. When people refer to a game failing at a launch they reference Anthem, people who have never even touched the game.

This is very different to established franchises like fallout or final fantasy having a game blunder at launch. And even the divison or destiny's launches were never met with the level of hype or backlash that Anthems did.

I fully expect it to be a "free" reboot for folks that own the game and ongoing cosmetic monetization. Hell, they could even move to F2P and throw some bonuses to previous owners. There are plenty of options.

Well that makes one of us.

*If* they continue to support it I have a hard time imagining EA green lighting the game being F2P right off the bat with no additional monetization paths. I'd very much like that to be the case, but I'm not holding my breath here.

That's kind of my take on the entire thing though. I really enjoyed the game and put in nearly 200 hours, I think its easily the best playing looter shooter if only it had a proper end game and better systems design. Game still has tremendous amount of potential and fills a space in the market that people are still very hungry for, I just have very low expectations out of EA.

[Ophenia]

I think if they dropped the game they won't say anything, because why would they?

They still have to communicate on that, because they have to shut the servers down, and also to avoid people to buy Anthem from then on

And I never got a legendary so I never noticed what they did. If true, that seems pretty bad as well.

Well, it all depended on additional stats, you could have a legendary having shittier bonuses than a masterworks. But on my side I was (am) fully legendary geared and I can guarantee they deal a shitton more damage than masterworks, to the point a godlike masterworks isn't even a match.
But yeah, people complained that the additional stats were a lot more important that the item itself. Which was changed I think soon after launch.

In the end that was coming back to the "endless grind" problem. It was piss easy to have a godlike masterworks, but you had like 1 legendary per dungeon, so the chances to get acceptable affixes was kinda low. This was slightly narrowed with the fix giving importance to your Javelin level (sort of ilvl), but its impact depended on the javelin you played (Storm was mostly using its abilities, so higher lvl was the key, while for Interceptor, it was mostly relying on weapons for example)

[Gaidax]

I'm pretty certain EA will rightfully drop the game, if they did not do already.

They don't need to go public on it, they can just silently sunset it after some time.

IMO, the horse is dead and it has that failure stink attached to it on top of immense efforts it will require to fix and add content. Publishers don't look kindly on failures and EA is certainly not a charity.

[Baconeggcheese]

They still have to communicate on that, because they have to shut the servers down, and also to avoid people to buy Anthem from then on

They don't have to shut the servers down though? Game can continue in maintenance mode. Not supporting future updates != shutting the game down.

[Edge-]

They don't have to shut the servers down though? Game can continue in maintenance mode. Not supporting future updates != shutting the game down.

Why tho? That's a pointless, even if minimal, cost to keep those servers up plus a bit of time from folks to address any issues. There's no point for a maintenance mode for this game, it hardly has anyone left playing and there's no real monetization tail for it since they totally stopped updating the already pretty meager offerings in the cash shop.

It'll either get the funding or they'll announce a closure. Just like they did with their one-time attempt at a MOBA that I don't think even made it out of early access.

[dope_danny]

Why tho? That's a pointless, even if minimal, cost to keep those servers up plus a bit of time from folks to address any issues. There's no point for a maintenance mode for this game, it hardly has anyone left playing and there's no real monetization tail for it since they totally stopped updating the already pretty meager offerings in the cash shop.

It'll either get the funding or they'll announce a closure. Just like they did with their one-time attempt at a MOBA that I don't think even made it out of early access.

It does make me wonder just how many actual console live services have been outright shutdown? It happens on pc all the time what with early access and kickstarters but Battleborne and Lawbreakers are the only things that spring to mind for me as being outright Dead dead.

[Edge-]

It does make me wonder just how many actual console live services have been outright shutdown? It happens on pc all the time what with early access and kickstarters but Battleborne and Lawbreakers are the only things that spring to mind for me as being outright Dead dead.

A fair amount have been taken down, but it's usually a part of a broader network so it's not something that costs too much from what I understand. Sony took down one of the Killzone multiplayer servers a while back, but that's all I can think of off the top of my head.

[Gaidax]

Why tho? That's a pointless, even if minimal, cost to keep those servers up plus a bit of time from folks to address any issues. There's no point for a maintenance mode for this game, it hardly has anyone left playing and there's no real monetization tail for it since they totally stopped updating the already pretty meager offerings in the cash shop.

It'll either get the funding or they'll announce a closure. Just like they did with their one-time attempt at a MOBA that I don't think even made it out of early access.

It's another game in the trash pile for their EA pass or whatever it is and they'd rather let it rot for a time being due to various PR and obligatory reasons, whether it's their Live Service scheme or what not.

For EA it's not really a biggie to have infrastructure needed for the few players there for some time being, it's been covered already anyway.

[Baconeggcheese]

Why tho? That's a pointless, even if minimal, cost to keep those servers up plus a bit of time from folks to address any issues. There's no point for a maintenance mode for this game, it hardly has anyone left playing and there's no real monetization tail for it since they totally stopped updating the already pretty meager offerings in the cash shop.

It'll either get the funding or they'll announce a closure. Just like they did with their one-time attempt at a MOBA that I don't think even made it out of early access.

Its just another game in the catalog for subs or the occasional box sale. Not a huge reason to take it down since its been in maintenance mode for about a year already.

Who knows though, I wouldn't be surprised if they took it down either. Point was that them not giving it the funding doesn't guarantee they shut it down right away.

[Rogalicus]

Seems like it's dead after all.
Edit: Bioware released a blogpost about their decision to drop the project

[Edge-]

Seems like it's dead after all.

That's pretty disappointing, but hopefully it's good news for DA, at least.

[Witchblade77]

Seems like it's dead after all.

I don't have a twitter and it refuses to show me anything without logging in, so could you recap what it says, please? the only thing I'm finding on google is from days ago and it talks about how there was nothing announced. https://gamerant.com/anthem-2-0-cancel-news-when-2021/

edited. ah, I see. type to slow. well, blah. they could at least make it easier to solo, IMO. if they are just going to abandon development.

[Rogalicus]

I don't have a twitter and it refuses to show me anything without logging in, so could you recap what it says, please? the only thing I'm finding on google is from days ago and it talks about how there was nothing announced. https://gamerant.com/anthem-2-0-cancel-news-when-2021/

Development is stopped, all devs are moved to DA4.
They've released official announcement

[Witchblade77]

Development is stopped, all devs are moved to DA4.
They've released official announcement

well.. lets hope its good news for DA4 then? sucky, but... not unexpected, I guess.

[rhorle]

The are probably better off cannibalizing Anthem for the new/next Mass Effect game anyways. A lot of the concepts would work pretty good for a Mass Effect style.

[Makabreska]

That's pretty disappointing, but hopefully it's good news for DA, at least.

Well, it's now or never for BioWare. And D4 alr had similar production pains as Anthem.

Wonder if "BioWare magic" gonna save them this time.

[Edge-]

Well, it's now or never for BioWare. And D4 alr had similar production pains as Anthem.

Wonder if "BioWare magic" gonna save them this time.

IIRC there was some early reporting of issues, but it was still very early pre-production. I hope they figure out how to run their studio again, and if not that EA steps in with some proper oversight to keep them on track and not spinning their wheels for years while people find empty meeting rooms to have nervous breakdowns in.

[Makabreska]

IIRC there was some early reporting of issues, but it was still very early pre-production. I hope they figure out how to run their studio again, and if not that EA steps in with some proper oversight to keep them on track and not spinning their wheels for years while people find empty meeting rooms to have nervous breakdowns in.

Well, they scraped entire thing and started from the scratch, like with Anthem. The reason we STILL don't have any gameplay, over 2 years after announcement.

[Katchii]

Disappointing, as Anthem really did have potential, but this is not at all unexpected. As others have already said, I hope this means good things for DA4.

[Baconeggcheese]

Yeah I figured that was coming, but it still sucks to hear.

Guess I can pop in at some point and experience the campaign again and fly around for a bit when the urge strikes me. Such a shame, game could've really been something special.