Anthem Delay Affects Guilds, Cataclysms, and More

Every week, BioWare has been pushing fixes, tweaks, and improvements to Anthem in-line with fan feedback every since the online title saw a rocky launch with no small amount of techincal issues. While a new update added key features, including a new Stronghold, this week, other long-awaited additions have been delayed. 

“It’s been 10 weeks since the early access release of Anthem,” began the most recent developer post from BioWare over on Reddit. “While we have been quiet publicly, we have been hard at work in the background and we wanted to provide an update on the state of the game.”

The post continued, “We have learned a lot since the game went live. We have heard a lot of feedback from all of you, and we have been working diligently to improve as many things as we can in the short term. We’ve fixed a lot of bugs and made changes which we believe begin to point us in the right direction for the future. That being said, we know there is a long way to go before Anthem becomes the game we all want it to be.”

While the Stronghold, Forge accessibility, new missions, and new contracts have been added, not all of the Act 1 goals have been met. Instead of pushing live when not ready, the studio is taking the additional time needed to make sure that the upcoming features work the way they are meant to an in-line with player expectations. 

Here’s what’s been delayed: 

• Mastery System
• Guilds
• Legendary Missions — Phase II
• Weekly Stronghold Challenge
• Leaderboards
• Some Freeplay Events
• Cataclysm

Cataclysms are one the the biggest things players have been looking forward to outside of the addition of guilds. It’s a “big focus” for the team, allowing players a brand new experience while also getting a chance to earn new rewards and take on brand new challenges. This is also the next step for the story of Anthem, one that saw a major victory at the end of the launch title’s progression. 

Loot is also getting an overhaul, including its progression system. That, and communication. Prior to launch, all members of the team were answering every single question day in and day out. Since launch, however, some of that communication filtered out as they focused on doing what needed to be done for the latest IP from BioWare. 

The studio ended its statement by saying, “We know you have been waiting for these updates, and that you might not be pleased with where we are today. We understand and respect these perspectives. The only thing we can say is this — We Believe in Anthem. We believe the game will be great, but we recognize getting there will take a lot of hard work. We want to do that work and we want you all to join us on the journey to get there.”

Anthem is now available on Xbox One, PlayStation 4, and PC.