The dichotomy between sales and critical reception of BioWare’s Anthem is intriguing, as the game sold quite well during the month of its release. But that doesn’t necessarily translate to positive reviews or a large player-base that will stick around, as intended. That’s why it’s wild that Anthem’s Twitch viewership fell to 52 earlier today, per PCGamesN. In fact, as that article was being written, Richard Scott-Jones noted that it fell to as low as 34 viewers.
However, since then, viewership has increased to over 180, at least as of 12:50 pm CT on April 30, 2019. Still, the fact that it dropped that low is substantial. Ever since Anthem‘s launch, the general reception has been mediocre at best, with signs pointing to a troubled development and a slew of issues.
We reported on this, per an article from Kotaku, in which several Anthem developers told stories of mismanagement, crunch, and general unhealthy practices during its development. A month after launch, the game’s general manager vowed to make Anthem better, and we even got a clear roadmap that detailed the plans to come.
However, due to the rough state of the game, BioWare and EA have decided to delay many planned features from the roadmap, including leaderboards, guilds, Cataclysm, Freeplay events, and more. Because of this, it makes sense that players have dropped off. If a recent survey about the game has any significance, players aren’t satisfied.
We’re hoping BioWare and EA can turn things around, but there are probably a lot of players who feel burned and may not return, even if many improvements are implemented. As the game continues to evolve, it will likely get better, but it could be too late. Surely, EA and BioWare don’t have much of a choice but to keep supporting Anthem—even if some of them wish they could completely wash their hands of it and move on.
[Source: PCGamesN]
