Anthem is not celebrating its first anniversary with in-game events nor communications with the fans, which is pretty disappointing for what few players still care about the game. Combining that with the rather depressing fact that Christmas decorations were still up in the game’s hub world for months after the holiday, sure makes it seem like Anthem has been abandoned. Of course, that latter point is because BioWare extended the Icetide event that the decorations were attached to into February, but it didn’t stop gamers from feeling that way.
BioWare had previously promised to the players that the company would be working on a revival of the struggling shooter, dubbing the effort as the 2.0 version of Anthem. The game was released on February 22, 2019, for PC, PlayStation 4, and Xbox One, and the developer has previously said they would be bringing new content as a total and complete rework to the core game, but that will not materialize for some time.
Details on the rework are still pretty light, although Casey Hudson, General Manager at BioWare, said that “we’ll keep the game going with events, store refreshes, and revisiting past seasonal and cataclysm content – starting with our anniversary towards the end of the month.”
That seems like it was just an empty promise, at this point, it looks while whatever teams are left on Anthem are pretty focused on other things, assuming any work is being done on the game at all. So we will have to wait and see if the reworks of Anthem 2.0 amount to redoing “the core gameplay loop with clear goals, motivating challenges and progression with meaningful rewards.”
The only team member to openly talk about the event was Game Director Jonathan Warner, who spoke highly of the game and its impact on his life, “what a journey this has been. My life has been forever changed this past year and I want to thank all who have played and enjoyed the game.”
