BioWare's Anthem officially delayed until 2019

Update: BioWare’s Anthem has been officially delayed to early 2019. This was confirmed by EA CFO Blake Jorgensen speaking with The Wall Street Journal. Oddly, Jorgensen said “it’s not a delay,” even though it was originally set to release fall 2018.

Original: BioWare’s Anthem has been reportedly delayed until 2019. The studio’s Destiny competition was originally set to release in fall 2018. Kotaku reports that it will miss that window.

Anthem was revealed at EA Play before E3 2017. The following day it received its first gameplay footage on Microsoft’s press conference stage. Anthem is being developed as an open-world action RPG with online aspects similar to Destiny. Players will inhabit a shared-world with other players, though they can complete activities alone or in a group. It was announced with a fall 2018 release date, however some people grew suspicious that BioWare would delay it due to the game’s scope.

According to three people close to the project speaking with Kotaku, the release window mentioned at E3 was “never realistic.” While the new release window isn’t set in stone, EA will likely push BioWare to release it by March 2019 at the latest. This decision appears to be made with EA’s 2019 fiscal year in mind, which ends that month.

BioWare has a lot riding on Anthem’s success. After Mass Effect: Andromeda became a failure in many fans’ eyes and EA was caught in the center of a controversy thanks to loot boxes in Star Wars Battlefront II, BioWare developers feel that Anthem needs to be as good as possible, with the studio’s reputation on the line. Plans for microtransactions in Anthem are still undecided, however Kotaku reports that they may only be cosmetic.

We won’t be able to play it for a while, but we can still admire Anthem’s stunning visuals and aesthetics from its gameplay reveal.