Things aren’t looking great for BioWare’s newest title Anthem. After releasing last month to average reviews at best, the game is now seeing a lot of players seeking refunds due to some rather serious crashing issues within the title, primarily on PlayStation 4. In a rare move, Sony has chosen to oblige these requests, with many of these users being granted their refunds simply due to how wide-spread the issue has become.
Normally when a game crashes, it is caught by the console’s firmware, which then notifies the user of the error and returns them to their home menu. Unfortunately, these crashes go beyond that, with several having the console crash as well, necessitating a reboot of the console by unplugging it from the power source. This has the potential to cause damage to the console itself, so this is quite a serious issue for those affected.
Following this, some PS4 users have been granted “no questions asked” refunds for their purchase of the game, with members of Anthem’s Reddit page sharing their experiences of speaking to members of Sony’s customer support. Some have received full refunds, while others have been simply advised to not play the game until the issue is resolved. There has been some theorising that those who don’t have any other refunds tied to their account are having more luck, though this hasn’t been officially confirmed. Sony has a reputation for having a rather stringent refund policy to begin with, so to see this many refunds being approved through them is surprising to say the least. Clearly, something is wrong.
In the meantime, BioWare has attempted to resolve these problems by shutting down the game’s servers to undergo some emergency maintenance. Between this and the amount of hotfixes that the game has received so far, some have been left wondering if the game simply needed more testing before release. The aforementioned maintenance occurred on the second, two days ago, yet users are still reporting crashing and wanting their money back, so for now it seems the game still needs fixing.
Here’s hoping that the game receives the fixes it so clearly needs, before its anthem changes into it’s swan song.
About the Author
Sonii Winters
She/her
I'm a plural trans woman who's been gaming since she was little. I grew up on Mario, Sonic, and Mega Man X, and I still love to play all sorts of games to this day! I love to draw, sprite, figure paint and even voice act, so yes, I'm a big ol' dork and proud of it :P
