BioWare delays major Anthem features including Cataclysms

BioWare has delayed several major Anthem features, including the first Cataclysm event, following the game’s troubled launch.

In a development update posted on Reddit, the studio also confirmed it has pushed back the release of the game’s mastery system, guilds, new legendary missions, a fresh stronghold challenge, leaderboards and some freeplay events.

“We know you have been waiting for these updates, and that you might not be pleased with where we are today,” BioWare said. “We understand and respect these perspectives.”

The studio said it’s been prioritising things like bug fixes, stability and game flow over new features, and that it’s made changes which it believes “begin to point us in the right direction for the future”.

“That being said,” it added, “we know there is a long way to go before Anthem becomes the game we all want it to be.”

BioWare has said Cataclysms will be Anthem’s “most ambitious and challenging content” — time-limited world events featuring incursions of dangerous enemies, extreme weather conditions and new mysteries to unravel.

This week’s development update said it will provide more information about the game’s first Cataclysm in May, while also acknowledging Anthem’s loot and progression systems “need to be improved”, with a further update on the subject due later.

“A lesson we have learned is we have been talking about things too early,” BioWare said. “There are so many factors that can cause us to pivot on our plans – whether it’s bugs & stability issues, player feedback, or complications with a feature that require us to take more time to deliver it.

“Our goal is to tell you about new content and features once the work is closer to being done.”

It also said it plans to launch a player feedback environment to get opinions on upcoming features from users before they go live.

The development update was published to coincide with the launch of the latest Anthem game update, which takes the title to version 1.1.0.

It includes the release of a new four-player Stronghold mission called The Sunken Cell, the ability to access the Forge from anywhere in the game world, plus various fixes and improvements, which are detailed in the official patch notes.

VGC’s Anthem review awarded the game 2/5, noting: “There’s an intriguing game buried somewhere in Anthem, lying broken beneath its loot and structural frustrations like chunks of fossilised dinosaur bone.”