EA have officially ceased development on Anthem. Making the announcement in the last hour on developer BioWare's official blog, Christian Daley -- Executive Producer on Anthem -- confirmed that all work on the 2019 game, had completely halted. While the team will keep the servers for the game online, the studio's attempt to revamp and relaunch the game, under the temporary working-title of Anthem NEXT -- looks to have proven unsuccessful. As to be expected, Daley referenced the ongoing pandemic and the seeming difficulties of working at home for the team, as a major benefactor in the decision.

As a result, Daley confirms that BioWare's efforts will now fully be on their other upcoming projects, including new entries in both the Dragon Age and Mass Effect series. "I know this will be disappointing to the community of Anthem players who have been excited to see the improvements we’ve been working on." Daley explains. "It’s also disappointing for the team who were doing brilliant work. And for me personally, Anthem is what brought me to BioWare, and the last two years have been some of the most challenging and rewarding experiences of my career."

Anthem was originally unveiled back at E3 2017 and while the game's first vertical slice of gameplay, looked impressive, further showings of the game leading up to its release in 2019, seemed to indicate that not everything was as promising and optimistic as it had initially been painted. Anthem released in February that year to fairly middling-to-negative scores from both critics and users alike. Despite tempered expectations, the general feeling was that it was a rather disappointing showing from BioWare -- a game that, by EA's own admission, did not meet expectation. Resulting in the game's previously-promised road-map of post-release content to be abandoned and as a result, the game going into a sort of hibernation with the hopes of relaunching and rebranding the project.