The physical sales of Anthem aren’t looking great, based on a recent report. There was a lot of excitement leading up to the release of BioWare’s next big game, but a few issues quickly began to make themselves known before launch. A number of critics with early-access were quick to point out several issues with the game since it was lacking a major Day One patch that wasn’t released just prior to launch, which prompted the VP of Xbox to criticize Anthem reviewers that simply provided negative feedback on the product.
Plans are said to be in place to improve and add to the experience through new content. Anthem has a post-launch roadmap featuring various things that will keep the title changing and growing for active players, but the problem at this point may be drawing those users in in the first place. A new report states that BioWare may not have the success on its hands that publisher Electronic Arts had hoped for.
Since officially releasing, Anthem has been met with the lowest review scores of any BioWare title ever. This may not be the only record it sets for the developer, however, as Eurogamer reports that physical sales of Anthem are half of what was sold by Mass Effect: Andromeda. Many believe that this entry in the series lead to BioWare and EA killing off the Mass Effect franchise entirely, and even Anthem’s producer admitted that Andromeda was a deeply flawed game.
Reports have since said that Mass Effect hasn’t been axed entirely, but to see Anthem only cracking half of the physical sales of Andromeda looks to be troubling for a game that’s going to live and die based on how active its user base is. Now, Anthem has still managed to crack the top of the charts in the UK for its launch-week sales, so it’s possible that more users have opted to download the game through online stores.
Electronic Arts has yet to officially report on the sell-through rate of Anthem, but the publisher does have another game that’s racked up a massive user base since launch. The game in question, Apex Legends, pulled in 25 million players within its first week of launch. This looks to be the breadwinner for the company for the foreseeable future, although it’s unlikely that Electronic Arts will give up on Anthem so quickly - even if sales are as low as the physical software charts indicate.
More: Anthem Xbox One Vs. PS4: Which Console To Play On?
Source: Eurogamer
