The Anthem reboot is coming, but it’s coming slowly. BioWare has shared a small development update on the revamped version of its shooter-meets-MMORPG, and while there’s little in the way of concrete detail, it suggests that the new Anthem is still a long distance away, and the team has just started properly prototyping the revamp.
“The Anthem incubation team has kicked off and we are starting to validate our design hypotheses,” BioWare Austin studio director Christian Dailey writes in the blog. “Incubation is a term we use internally – it essentially means we are going back and experimenting/prototyping to improve on the areas where we believe we fell short and to leverage everything that you love currently about Anthem.
“We are a small team – about 30-ish, earning our way forward as we set out to hit our first major milestone goals. Spoiler – this is going to be a longer process. And yes, the team is small but the whole point of this is to take our time and go back to the drawing board. And a small team gives us the agility a larger one can’t afford.”
News of Anthem 2.0 – or NEXT, as Dailey calls it here – first broke late last year with a report from Kotaku. BioWare GM Casey Hudson confirmed the Anthem reboot back in February. While the game’s still getting a regular loop of events and content rotations, all new content is on hold pending the rework.
An update on Anthem from Christian Dailey.https://t.co/yKNmt5l3Sh
— BioWare (@bioware) May 15, 2020
It’s still unclear how Anthem NEXT will be released – a free update, an expansion, or a full sequel – or what changes will eventually be made. It sounds like BioWare’s still figuring out the details, too, so if you were hoping EA Play in June would provide more info, it sounds like we’re going to have to wait a good deal longer for anything substantial.
Elsewhere in BioWare, the studio is still working on Dragon Age 4, and insiders have reported that both Mass Effect 5 and Mass Effect Trilogy Remastered are in the works – though the latter two titles remain unofficial and unconfirmed for now.