According to a report from Bloomberg’s Jason Schreier, the failure of Anthem resulted in a major redirection for Dragon Age 4. Bioware’s long-awaited installment to their high-fantasy RPG franchise was originally set to be another live service game. That has since been dropped for more of a return to form for the series as the game will now be a single-player RPG.
The update comes fresh off of yesterday’s official cancellation of Anthem Next. This would have been a reinvention of Anthem after being dragged through the mud since its release. EA seems to have finally gotten tired of forcing multiplayer and live service functionality and stripped it away from Dragon Age 4.
Anthem was not the only driving factor behind this pivot. Sources close to the development of Dragon Age 4 also pointed to the success of Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order as another driving factor. EA’s single-player Star Wars adventure was met with positive reviews and blew sales expectations out of the water for the publisher. It was the vastly different critical and commercial responses from both of these very different titles that led to the game that Dragon Age 4 is shaping up to be.
Maybe EA is finally realizing that they have these legendary studios with specific skills and that they should capitalize on that. Instead of putting out another live service game to hopefully create an infinite stream of revenue, let your talent make what has been established as their bread and butter. The last few years have been especially rocky for Bioware and hopefully, this will be a turning point to have them return to their former glory.
