Anthem, the new IP from BioWare, will not be released in 2018 as previously planned. Instead, the Destiny-esque action game will launch in early 2019, EA confirmed today during its quarterly earnings call with investors. For its part, the company claims this is not a delay.
Prior to the call, it shared this with the Wall Street Journal, confirming a recent report from Kotaku that said Anthem had been delayed. Speaking with the WSJ, EA CFO Blake Jorgensen stated this was not actually a delay. However, that appears to be untrue, given the company had previously cited a 2018 release for the game, which is headed to PC, PS4, and Xbox One.
EA didn’t go into great deal about the reasoning behind the delay. Kotaku’s report suggested it was due at least in part to issues with development, though the statement to the WSJ attributes it instead to a desire to release the game during a less crowded period. EA only briefly addressed the subject during this afternoon’s conference call with investors, and it was presented as if this were not a delay. We’ll report back with anything it has to say during the Q&A portion of the call. Its actual earnings report made no mention of the news.
Dragon Age executive producer Mark Darrah recently confirmed he had joined the Anthem project, also in the role of executive producer. BioWare as a whole has seen a great deal of change in the last year, particularly since the troubled launch of Mass Effect: Andromeda early in 2017. BioWare Edmonton GM Aaryn Flynn announced his departure last summer, with Casey Hudson returning to the company to take up his position. Andromeda developer BioWare Montreal was later absorbed into EA Motive.
Source: gamespot.com