Listen up: Anthem had been out for less than a week and BioWare was already tinkering with the heart of the game, the loot. In late February 2019, after a bug that made enemies drop good items too easily (and which had already been fixed), the studio promised changes to the system. Shortly after, producer Ben Irving explained on Reddit what the adjustments would be like, due to arrive the next day.
The beef was with those who had already finished the story and were in the endgame, trying to max out their Javelin with masterworks, the highest-tier pieces. The problem: those pieces could come with inscriptions (the random bonuses) that were useless for the build, and the player kept receiving common and uncommon items, which no longer served any purpose at that point. The main announced changes:
- green and white items are removed from the loot tables for those at level 30, reducing the chance of getting duplicate gear;
- the material to craft masterworks drops from 25 to 15 masterwork embers;
- inscriptions now match the item: instead of a single table for weapons, each weapon type, such as assault rifles, gets its own.
The example BioWare gave helps to understand: an assault rifle would no longer come with pistol damage bonuses. At most, it could bring an electrical damage boost for the Javelin, useful for those building around electricity. For those who like farming, it was the kind of adjustment that makes a difference in the routine.
What came next
The tweaks were not enough to keep players around. Anthem ended up with Metacritic scores between 54 and 65, with criticism aimed at the shallow endgame and the grind. In February 2020, BioWare announced it would rework the game, but it ended development on February 24, 2021. The servers were shut down on January 12, 2026, and the game became unplayable. It arrived with a bang visually, but left through the back door.
Source: BioWare, via Eurogamer.
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