Anthem was kind of baffling right from the start. Why would BioWare, a studio built almost exclusively on popular singleplayer RPGs—Baldur's Gate, Neverwinter Nights, KOTOR, Mass Effect, Dragon Age, let us not forget Jade Empire—suddenly dive into a multiplayer-focused looter shooter? It was weird, and the outcome, if not inevitable, was at least not entirely surprising: We called it "deeply flawed and frequently frustrating" in our 55% review, and just two years after it launched in 2019, BioWare pulled the plug, officially halting future development.
There's an old adage that says you learn more from failure than success, and that may be the one upside to Anthem's big bomb. In a new Edge magazine feature on BioWare's upcoming Dragon Age: The Veilguard, creative director John Epler said the studio's experience with Anthem taught it a tough but important lesson: Stick to what you know.
