EA Announces Plan To Sunset Anthem

One of the more striking elements of the lengthy piece was the target set by EA’s executive leadership: 100 million players over a set period. To call this ambitious may be the understatement of the decade. As one EA employee is quoted in the report, “Obviously, Battlefield has never achieved those numbers before.” Another employee goes on to point out that even the most successful Battlefield entry numbers-wise, 2016’s Battlefield 1, reached “maybe 30 million plus.”

While it’s tempting to dig more at this number for a franchise that has seen better days, there is already a section near the end of the report that aptly contextualizes just how miraculous it’d be to pull it off. It is appropriately called “In this attention economy?”

Speaking of attention, Anthem received plenty of it even before releasing on February 20th, 2019. Simply put, it has a rocky history. It was plagued by serious production issues and pivots before its launch. Upon release, critics and players alike saw potential in the game, but it didn’t click for most due to its half-baked features. 

In fact, this isn’t even the first time there’s been a story involving cancellation for the online game, as additional development was halted on February 2021 due to the previously mentioned reception. Today, it sits at a 59 average on the review aggregation site Metacritic, making it one of the worst-reviewed games from a studio that has released critically-acclaimed hits like the Dragon Age and Mass Effect series. 

Notably, the post announcing this Anthem news has an FAQ section that ends with the question, “Has anyone else at BioWare been affected by these changes?” to which it answers, “No, the sunsetting of Anthem has not led to any layoffs.” After this week of mass layoffs, that’s a minor relief.

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