14 DAY TRIAL // Although Anthem is one of the biggest fiascos in EA's history, it looks like the publisher isn't ready to let go. While the game might be dead, developer BioWare has been given the green light to try and completely overhaul the game's systems.
A new report by Kotaku's Jason Schreier claims the EA has been planning a complete redesign of the game in the last few months. The project is called Anthem 2.0 or Anthem Next, but it's still early in development.
It's quite unusual for a developer to launch a game and after a while to start working on the same game to relaunch it. It's been done before with No Man's Sky, so it might work with Anthem as well if the execution is flawless.
Anyway, the report says there's no clear timeline for the Anthem Next project, so we don't know when and if BioWare will eventually pull it through. As a matter of fact, sources inside BioWare claim the developer hasn't yet decided how the changes will be released and whether or not they should be made available all at once or over an extended period of time.
At the moment, EA and BioWare are considering three options for the complete overhaul and how it will be distributed to players. The first one is to deliver timely updates the same as No Man's Sky developer did. The second would be to launch an expansion like Destiny's Taken King. Thirdly, the publisher is even considering releasing Anthem Next as a brand new game.
“We spent a few months just tearing it down and figuring out what needed to change fundamentally (a lot). And we’ve been rebuilding for another few months since,” said one person on the project.
The bottom line is Anthem is not dead in EA's eyes, although BioWare has a lot to work on the project as the game's major systems – mission structure, loot, and the world must suffer drastic changes.