Why BioWare’s Anthem Still Matters for Dragon Age

Anthem has become a byword for unrealized potential. BioWare, once synonymous with rich single-player RPGs like Dragon Age and Mass Effect, took a major gamble on a shared-world, loot-driven shooter – and stumbled badly. Yet former studio veterans have argued that Anthem should not be remembered solely as a failure, but as a risky experiment that reflects BioWare’s long history of change and reinvention.

This article explores why Anthem still matters: how it emerged, why it struggled, what its shutdown meant, and how its legacy continues to shape BioWare’s approach to Dragon Age and other future projects.

From Story-Driven RPGs to a Shared-World Shooter

For many players, BioWare is defined by cinematic, choice-heavy RPGs. But the studio has never been entirely static. Over the years, it has:

• Moved from isometric party-based RPGs to fully voiced, cinematic experiences.
• Experimented with different combat styles, from tactical pausing to action-oriented systems.
• Shifted between fantasy, sci-fi, and licensed universes.

Anthem represented another of those pivots – this time into the realm of live service games. Influenced by the success of titles like Destiny, publishers and studios across the industry sought recurring revenue models built around long-term content updates. EA and BioWare followed this trend with Anthem, designing it as a co-op, loot-focused shooter with ongoing support after launch.

That decision wasn’t born in a vacuum. Major publishers were increasingly prioritizing games that could sustain large communities over time, with ongoing monetization. Industry data from groups such as the UK’s Competition and Markets Authority and the European Commission show that digital services and live operations have become central to game revenue models over the past decade, particularly through downloadable content, cosmetic microtransactions, and expansions.¹ Anthem was part of this broader shift.

What Anthem Tried to Do Differently

Anthem attempted to fuse BioWare’s strengths with the demands of a modern online action game. On paper, the concept had several standout elements:

• Exosuit-based power fantasy: Players piloted customizable “Javelins,” each with distinct abilities and roles, emphasizing aerial mobility and flashy combat.
• Cooperative action: The game was built around teams of players working together to tackle missions, world events, and high-challenge content.
• Persistent world: Live updates, seasonal events, and evolving content were meant to keep the game fresh over the long term.
• Story hub: Fort Tarsis functioned as a grounded narrative space where players could interact with characters and make dialogue choices.

In theory, Anthem could combine BioWare’s storytelling with tight, responsive action and a long-lived online structure. In practice, compromises and competing priorities made it difficult to deliver on all these fronts at once.

Why Anthem Struggled to Find Its Audience

While reactions to Anthem were not universally negative, several recurring criticisms surfaced from players, reviewers, and industry observers:

• Unclear identity: Anthem sat at an awkward intersection of story-driven RPG and loot shooter. Players expecting a classic BioWare narrative were disappointed by a thinner, more fragmented story delivery, while fans of pure loot games felt progression and endgame content were lacking at launch.
• Technical issues and performance problems: Reports documented crashes, performance hitches, and an overall lack of polish during the launch window, which harmed first impressions and fragmented player retention.
• Live service growing pains: Maintaining a live service game demands robust pipelines for content, balance changes, and player communication. Anthem struggled to sustain a compelling cadence of meaningful updates.
• Market competition: By the time Anthem arrived, players already had entrenched options in the shared-world shooter space. Convincing them to migrate – or to juggle multiple live games – was a tough proposition.

EA later acknowledged the game’s difficulties and announced plans to substantially rework Anthem. Ultimately, those plans were abandoned. In early 2021 EA confirmed that the large redesign effort, informally known as “Anthem Next,” had been cancelled so the studio could concentrate on other projects, including new entries for Dragon Age and Mass Effect.²

Shutting Down Anthem’s Live Service

Anthem’s official live service shutdown effectively marked the end of its experiment as a long-term live product. For players still invested in the game’s flight mechanics and cooperative combat, the closure stung. For BioWare, it was a candid admission that the project had not achieved its goals.

Yet internally and among former developers, Anthem has often been framed as a learning experience rather than a cautionary tale to never try something new again. Veteran staff have emphasized that BioWare was never meant to be frozen in time, endlessly repeating the same template. Instead, Anthem is seen as one chapter in a longer story of a studio that has reinvented itself repeatedly, sometimes successfully and sometimes not.

Anthem’s Role in BioWare’s Development History

Viewed in context, Anthem is one part of a broader lineage of experimentation:

Each stage involved risks and trade-offs. Anthem sits at the far end of that continuum, where BioWare pushed into a genre and business model that demanded new pipelines, tools, and development rhythms. The fact that it failed commercially and critically does not erase the institutional lessons it produced.

Creative Risk vs. Player Expectation

Anthem also crystallized a tension that every long-lived studio faces: how far can you deviate from what your audience expects before you lose them? For BioWare, whose reputation rests on narrative-driven, single-player experiences, the jump to a co-op loot shooter was dramatic.

Veterans have argued that sticking rigidly to a formula is unsustainable in the long term. As technologies, player habits, and business pressures evolve, studios must adapt. However, Anthem highlighted several key considerations for future reinvention:

• Core identity must remain visible: Players come to a studio’s games for specific reasons. Even when experimenting, those core strengths—such as character writing or meaningful choice—need to be front and center.
• Scope has to match expertise: Moving into live service introduces technical, organizational, and community challenges. Studios need time, tools, and specialized talent to handle them effectively.
• Communication is crucial: Managing expectations around what a game is—and is not—helps prevent misalignment between marketing promises and delivered experience.

Anthem’s marketing positioned it as a major next step for BioWare, with deep story and long-term support. When those expectations collided with reality, disappointment was amplified.

How Anthem Shaped the Future of Dragon Age

One of Anthem’s most significant impacts may be on games that followed it, especially the next Dragon Age. Reports from credible industry outlets have described how early concepts for the new Dragon Age were more heavily centered on live-service elements and online systems, reflecting publisher enthusiasm for recurring revenue models. According to reporting from outlets such as Bloomberg and other major games media, that direction was later reversed as Anthem’s struggles and the success of traditional single-player games like Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order demonstrated the continued viability of story-driven titles.³

While precise design details remain proprietary, the broad trajectory appears clear:

• Early pressure to adopt live-service structures was reduced after Anthem underperformed.
• Internal and external feedback reinforced the value of BioWare’s strengths in narrative and character-driven storytelling.
• The studio refocused on delivering a robust single-player RPG experience, even if some elements of Anthem’s technology or lessons about combat pacing remained.

In other words, Anthem may have inadvertently steered Dragon Age back toward what many long-term fans wanted: a game squarely aimed at satisfying players who prefer deep, authored adventures over ongoing live-service loops.

What Anthem Still Contributes to BioWare Today

Despite its abrupt end, Anthem left behind more than just cautionary tales. Several constructive outcomes can be identified:

1. Technical and Production Learnings

Building a large online game forced BioWare to engage deeply with issues like network infrastructure, server scaling, content pipelines, and live-ops tooling. Even if the studio does not pursue another full live-service title soon, this experience can inform:

• Online features in otherwise single-player games (social spaces, optional co-op, data collection).
• More efficient production pipelines and asset re-use strategies.
• Better internal risk assessment when adopting new technologies or frameworks.

2. Clearer Boundaries Around Experimentation

Anthem demonstrates the importance of aligning experiments with a studio’s identity. BioWare can still innovate—in combat, narrative structure, or world design—but future experiments are likely to keep the studio’s core strengths more visible. Rather than trying to emulate the structure of other live-service hits, new projects may pursue originality in ways that feel more recognizably “BioWare” to their audience.

3. Renewed Focus on Single-Player Storytelling

The industry conversation around single-player games has shifted in recent years. Strong sales for narrative-focused experiences like God of War (2018), Horizon Forbidden West, and Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order showed that single-player titles remain commercially viable and critically acclaimed.⁴ Anthem’s difficulties reinforced this view inside EA and across the industry: not every major game needs to be a live service, and studios known for story-driven experiences can lean into that identity.

What Players Can Take Away from Anthem’s Story

Anthem’s trajectory offers several broader lessons for players and observers of the games industry:

• Studios evolve: No studio can—or should—stay creatively static. Failures are part of that process, and a single misstep doesn’t erase earlier achievements or future potential.
• Risk is unavoidable: Taking creative risks means some projects won’t land. The critical question is whether studios can learn from those outcomes and apply those lessons constructively.
• Player feedback matters: Community response to Anthem influenced how publishers evaluated live-service requirements for other projects. Vocal support for well-crafted single-player games has had a tangible impact.
• Context matters: Anthem wasn’t created in isolation; it was part of a wider industry push toward live service. Understanding that context helps explain decisions, even if you disagree with them.

Frequently Asked Questions

Was Anthem a total failure for BioWare?

Commercially and critically, Anthem did not meet expectations, and its live-service shutdown underscored that. However, from a development and strategic perspective, it provided valuable lessons about live-service design, production challenges, and the importance of leaning into BioWare’s core strengths in narrative RPGs. Many studio veterans frame it as a painful but informative experiment rather than a project with no redeeming value.

Did Anthem permanently damage the Dragon Age series?

Anthem certainly affected the environment in which the next Dragon Age is being developed. Early reports indicated that live-service concepts influenced early Dragon Age planning, and Anthem’s underperformance helped convince stakeholders to refocus on single-player storytelling. Rather than damaging Dragon Age beyond repair, Anthem may have pushed it back toward what fans most associate with the series: deep characters, impactful choices, and a focused narrative experience.

Why did BioWare pursue a live service game in the first place?

During the period when Anthem was in development, live-service titles were seen as one of the most promising ways to generate ongoing revenue. Games like Destiny and The Division helped popularize the idea of shared-world shooters. Publishers across the industry, including EA, sought to capture similar success, and Anthem was BioWare’s attempt to operate in that space while still bringing some of its narrative sensibilities to the genre.

Could Anthem ever return in some form?

There are no credible indications from EA or BioWare that Anthem will be revived as a live service or sequel in the near future. Once a live-service infrastructure is shut down and a studio’s resources are committed elsewhere, resuscitating such a project becomes increasingly unlikely. That said, certain ideas—like the feel of flying Javelins or specific combat concepts—could influence future designs without Anthem itself returning.

What does Anthem’s story suggest about the future of BioWare?

Anthem underlined both the risks of straying too far from a studio’s identity and the need to adapt thoughtfully to market trends. Moving forward, BioWare appears poised to focus heavily on narrative-rich single-player titles while still modernizing combat and world design. The next entries in Dragon Age and Mass Effect will likely be judged partly on how well they incorporate lessons learned from Anthem’s missteps.

Conclusion: A Flawed Experiment with a Lasting Impact

Anthem will likely never enjoy the retrospective reappraisal that some flawed classics receive. Yet its significance for BioWare cannot be reduced to “a bad game.” It was a bold attempt to fuse the studio’s storytelling heritage with a demanding live-service model, undertaken in an era when the industry was rapidly shifting toward ongoing online experiences.

The experiment did not succeed on its own terms, but its influence lingers—in the recalibration of Dragon Age, in renewed appreciation for focused single-player RPGs, and in the internal knowledge gained about what it takes to run a modern live-service game. For players invested in BioWare’s future, Anthem is less an isolated misstep and more a turning point: a moment that clarified what the studio is, what it is not, and where it might go next.