Dragon Age veteran believes scrapped Anthem Next had the potential for a comeback like No Man’s Sky.

Less than seven years after its debut, Anthem has officially met its end, which is particularly disheartening given that its executive producer believes the plans for a major overhaul could have led to a comeback akin to No Man’s Sky.

In a recent interview, Mark Darrah, who served as the executive producer for Anthem as well as the Dragon Age series, discussed Anthem Next (essentially a revamped version of the game) and its potential impact on the game’s longevity and player reception. For context, Anthem Next was officially canceled in February 2021, although at that time, the intention was to keep the existing live service running, a plan that has not aged well.

When asked if Anthem Next could have “actually saved” the game and if it would have delivered “revolutionary-level updates” similar to No Man’s Sky, Darrah responded, “It could have been.”

Darrah has previously shared insights about Anthem Next in his YouTube series, where he reflects on the game’s journey. He mentioned that BioWare’s choice to pursue Anthem Next was “definitely the right call,” suggesting that if they hadn’t announced a roadmap, the decision might have come sooner. The team aimed to set aside the original act structure to focus on necessary improvements rather than sticking to prior announcements, which he believes should have been the approach from the start.

He elaborated that Anthem Next was intended to broaden the game’s appeal and help it regain its footing as a live service. Darrah expressed that EA’s decision to halt this effort was a mistake. He proposed a different strategy for Anthem Next, which would have involved porting the game to current-gen consoles and, importantly, transitioning to “locally hosted servers.”

“Anthem actually had the code for local servers running in a dev environment right up until a few months before launch,” Darrah noted. “I don’t know if it still works, but the code is there to be salvaged. This approach would reduce the costs of maintaining the game. Instead of relying on dedicated servers, you could let the game run on one of the machines playing it.” He added that this could have been complemented by introducing AI party members, allowing players to experience the game in a single-player format.

Unfortunately, we’ll never know if Anthem Next or Darrah’s suggestions could have revived BioWare’s looter shooter. It’s a missed opportunity that the game never had a fair chance to realize its full potential, much like No Man’s Sky and Cyberpunk 2077 did after their own tumultuous launches.

Anthem “did permanent damage to the careers of a lot of game devs,” says a veteran from Dragon Age, expressing uncertainty about whether he or BioWare ever fully recovered from its significant failure.