Sony Now Offering Refunds on Anthem as Crash Reports Spread to Xbox One [Updated]

Once upon a time, there was an incredible RPG developer named BioWare. It created some of the most enduring RPGs ever built, from the beloved isometric Baldur’s Gate series to Mass Effect. Games like Knights of the Old Republic remain legendary in the PC gaming canon.

Now, dark times have fallen over BioWare. Its latest title, Anthem, received mixed reviews on launch. A recent update intended to improve the game appears to have sent it into a catastrophic tailspin instead, with reports of PS4 and now Xbox crashes, hard locks, and claims of at least two bricked consoles. Sony has begun handing out refunds. After Mass Effect: Andromeda, can BioWare survive torpedoing two major franchises in a row?

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As of this writing, Sony is refunding Anthem customers while BioWare collects data on the underlying problem. Meanwhile, reports are also coming in of issues on Xbox One.

We’re aware of a crashing issue some of you have been reporting for #AnthemGame. We’re investigating and ask that you share your crash data reports when prompted. If you have, we’ll be reaching out to gather info; if not, please reply to this thread on AHQ:https://t.co/36P21YFjYL

— EA Help (@EAHelp) March 4, 2019

This kind of problem could pose serious issues for the developer. BioWare is already responding to rumors that issues with Anthem could lead to the studio being closed. The game is already on sale at Amazon. And EA clearly had no faith in the launch at all, as evidenced by the fact that it kicked Apex Legends out the door right before Anthem. All anyone has talked about regarding Apex Legends how awesome it is. All anyone talks about with Anthem is the long load times and how badly BioWare screwed up its supposedly awesome Iron Man-esque combat with interminable load times, slow movement speed through Ft. Tarsis, and long, long NPC conversations.

But there’s a difference between being a not-very-good game and crashing or bricking people’s consoles on a regular basis. Whether you blame the EA bean-counters or poor QA in general, it’s clear that this game should never have shipped when it did. It was buggy and half-baked on release, and now it’s crashing and (under apparently rare conditions) even killing consoles in the process.

I’m not saying EA will kill BioWare over this. But it wouldn’t surprise me if, six months from now, we’re reading about exactly that event. After Mass Effect: Andromeda failed, EA froze development on Mass Effect, downgraded BioWare Montreal to a support studio, and then merged what was left of it into Motive Studios. If Anthem doesn’t recover, the same thing could happen here.

Update 3/6/19 1:40pm EST: We’re hearing from multiple readers (including some commenters) that while Sony may have granted some refunds in specific cases, this does not appear to be the overall case. We’ve been contacted by readers who provided chat logs of Sony reps denying refunds. For now, the message seems to be “Stand by while we fix the game,” not “We shipped broken software that could brick your console, so here’s your money back.” One reader even shared a screenshot with us in which a rep for EA (contacted after Sony proved unwilling to provide a refund) stated:

Your PS4 might be at risk if you continue to play anthem while the issue is active. So for now, I suggest to stay away from anthem as much as possible so that your ps4 will be safe.

When said reader responded by observing that the game is currently a “digital paperweight,” the response from EA was “and our studio is fixing it as fast as they could.”

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