Gamers Comment on Cancelation of Anthem Next

The news of Anthem's development ending was not overly surprising. The road to the game's de facto final demise can be considered either very short (just over a year with years of development promised) or too long (the harbingers of disaster have been visible for quite some time). While there's no question of surprise, Anthem players have a lot to say about yesterday's announcement. Of course, these are by no means compliments for the developers and publisher.

Anthem marks the end of the "friendship" with BioWare and EA

The post-release story of Anthem can hardly be described as anything other than a disappointment, and that's the prevailing trend in posts about Anthem Next's cancelation. The game's community on Reddit (numbering just under 171,000 users) makes it clear that Electronic Arts and BioWare have simply fooled the players. Internet users point to interviews from years ago, which - to put it mildly - have not aged well. Enought to mention Patrick Söderlund's words that Anthem was going to be developed for many, many years after launch, while the game barely made it to its second birthday. And that's despite the fact that the devs dropped the support of Mass Effect Andromeda to focus on Anthem.

It's easy to guess that this treatment of players has meant that many buyers have no intention of supporting either Electronic Arts or BioWare in the future. Of course, the attention is mainly focused on the publisher, which has already irritated many Internet users in one way or another. However, some Reddit users believe that the devs are not without fault and point to the rumors (albeit quite credible) about problems with the game. That's why many of them declare that they don't intend to invest in games from BioWare and Electronic Arts in the future.

It's doubtful that this will have a greater impact on the publisher's actions - similar declarations have been accompanied for a long time by further reports of microtransactions, which somehow still make a lot of money for EA (and others ). The chances of getting a refund for the game, as demanded by some Anthem purchasers, are probably equally high.

What's next with Anthem?

However, some internet users draw attention to a much more important issue. Lack of further support for Anthem doesn't have to mean the end of the game. Some fans want BioWare to make the source code available in the form of open-source software, as Epic Games did with Paragon. This is how Predecessor was born, for example, which promises to be so good that earlier this year the devs received funding from Epic Games as part of the so-called Epic MegaGrants (a program of non-refundable support for devs using tools or content prepared by the company). Unfortunately, this would involve releasing data on the Frostbite engine, which is unlikely to happen.

Others point to a less extreme solution: let BioWare make Anthem playable without an Internet connection. While the devs have promised to maintain the game's servers, fans are pretty sure that sooner or later Electronic Arts will find it unprofitable. In such a case, the players would lose access to the game in any form, which - according to a large number of Reddit users - is inevitable.

Not so serious Anthem

Of course, the Internet would not be the Internet, if, in addition to indignation, threats and despair, it wouln't produce numerous jokes and memes, even if with bitter overtones. Some players openly joke about Anthem's "unexpected" death or the game's excellent (read: not great) ratings, which would look great on the cover of the Game of the Year edition (which you can see below).

However, not everyone sees it fit to post separate threads on Reddit or Twitter. This is proven by the main thread with Christian Dailey's (Anthem's executive producer) announcement, with over 3,400 comments on Reddit, as is the official Twitter post.

1. Anthem - official website
2. Anthem - game guide