Bioware Have Seemingly Learned Their Lesson
After all, it was only earlier this week that Bioware cancelled Anthem Next, an upgrade to their critically divisive game Anthem. Anthem never managed to hit it big with gamers, and it looks like Bioware have decided it’s better to stick to what’s worked. If you’re a fan of Anthem as it is, the good news is that it’s staying online, but don’t expect any upgrades – or a similar multiplayer focus in future games.
One such game with planned multiplayer features was Dragon Age 4, which is now going to be a purely single-player experience – at least, that’s what Bloomberg are reporting. While we don’t know what the multiplayer component of the game would have looked like, it looks like we’ll never find out, and the developer are refocusing on what they’ve always excelled at – whether in Dragon Age or Mass Effect.
Also reportedly being removed are planned Games as Services components, but whether this meant that the planned multiplayer would have come at an additional cost is unknown.
The shift is reportedly due to two things – both Anthem’s aforementioned failure to inspire audiences and the massive success of Star Wars: Fallen Order.
Still, it looks like the cancellation of multiplayer features will be a bitter pill to swallow for the developers – according to sources close to production, the game was previously designed to have a heavy multiplayer component – with the game’s developement beginning in 2015 and being rebooted in 2017 to explore long-term monetization, with those working on the game reportedly referring to it as “Anthem with dragons”.
However, as much as it hurts to have a lot of work amount to nothing, it looks like the Bioware team weren’t necessarily happy with the changes, as some of the leaders have fought against parent company EA to refocus their efforts on single player. Is it worth what is (reportedly) four years of wasted effort? That’s up for debate, but at least some members of the team will be satisfied that the final product will be better than it would be otherwise.
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