What’s Next for BioWare’s Anthem?

BioWare took to their blog to outline what’s next with Anthem, though they weren’t too clear on long-term plans. BioWare’s own Chad Robertson took to the BioWare blog to talk about what’s next for the online game despite the unusual radio silence while also pulling attention to recent changes, based on player feedback, to the title’s Cataclysm.

As for recent changes, per Robertson: 

• Combat balancing improvements
• Adjustments for minor-to-major crystal economy
• Additional types of reward crates, providing more player choice
• UX tips in load screens to better explain Cataclysm mechanics
• Final Score Banners to show how much score was gained from playing on higher difficulties

Which is all fine and dandy, but what’s next? With so much unusual radio silence from the team paired with a nasty reception due to bugs and different perspectives on the game’s base story, many have wondered if BioWare would continue to support the adventure given that it meant to be a chaptered tale. According to Robertson, the team is still focused on updates but had to make a core pivot to how they approached future updates in order to comply with player wishes. 

According to Robertson, “In order to address these long-range plans, we are moving away from the Acts structure for updates. Instead, we have additional seasonal updates planned for this year that we think players will enjoy. These events will deliver challenges and chases similar to what you’ve seen, and are built around some fun themes we’re bringing to the game.” 

He added, “As I’ve said previously, we want to be transparent with you that we know more work needs to be done to make Anthem better. We also want to ensure we’re backing up our words with a great game you can play.  So I don’t have any news today to share about the long-term changes we are bringing to Anthem. What I can say is that we will continue to engage with you, our community, through PTS when we can show you what is coming. ” 

With it being a live story, it makes sense that the game at launch felt “incomplete.” It was meant to, it was building, but the silence after was a cause of concern for many. Since launch, the team has been working on making a lot of the base changes players have been asking for and it looks like that continued feedback correlation will continue – especially given the change in creative rollouts. How this will shape Anthem remains to be seen, but it’s nice to see it appears to be at the forefront. Despite many various opinions, I personally enjoyed the game and its story and amazing flight mechanics. 

As for the game in its current state, Anthem is available on Xbox One, PlayStation 4, and PC.