Published , by TJ Denzer
Published , by TJ Denzer
There’s a softly contested debate on whether or not Anthem has life left or is worth saving. BioWare seems to believe in both, recently having revealed plans to do an entire redesign built towards delivering the experience they think players will enjoy. If you missed the reveal or had trouble getting a look at it, it’s because BioWare temporarily crashed their blog after announcing their plans to fix Anthem.
On February 10, 2020, BioWare General Manager Casey Hudson went on the BioWare blog to announce new plans regarding the future of Anthem. According to Hudson, the team knows full well that while they have continued to update Anthem with stability and content updates over several seasons, they realize that there are problems with the game that simple updates won’t fix.
“We recognize that there’s still more fundamental work to be done to bring out the full potential of the experience,” Hudson explained. “And it will require a more substantial reinvention than an update or expansion.”
To that end, Hudson explained that the team would be looking at a much more ground-up change of Anthem as a whole.
“Over the coming months we will be focusing on a longer-term redesign of the experience,” Hudson continued. “Specifically working to reinvent the core gameplay loop with clear goals, motivating challenges and progression with meaningful rewards.”
It feels like BioWare has been forced to apologize for Anthem from the beginning, so a complete refresh of the game may definitely be warranted if there’s anything to salvage. Unfortunately, even BioWare’s announcement to redesign Anthem got off to a rough start. Shortly after Hudson launched his blog explaining the situation and future of Anthem, the BioWare blog temporarily crashed for a bit. It’s back online now, but it’s sort of an unfortunately fitting kickoff to the plans to fix a game that was bricking PS4s when it first launched. Some folks believe that it speaks to interest in Anthem, so maybe there's something there - optimism at the very least.
So it begs the question, can Anthem be redesigned into something better? If it was, would you play it? Let us know in the Shacknews Chatty comment section below.