Anthem hard crashing PS4s, potentially other systems
Watching the Triple A video games industry melt down is proving to be more entertaining this past year than the games themselves. Our latest tidbit of news to come across my desk involves BioWare’s loot shooter Anthem and it’s propensity to break your PS4.
According to various reports in the official subreddit, PlayStation players are being met with hard system crashes that cause the console to do a full power cycle. Upon restart, the console then enters its repair mode, similar to what occurs when it’s unplugged from the wall while still running. Indicating that this is not your run of the mill crash, but may be causing lower level corruption to the PS4’s OS or file system. Something which could cause serious malfunctions with the hardware if not corrected.
While the issue doesn’t appear to be widespread at this point, there are several reports of PC and Xbox players suffering similar problems. Sony has yet to comment, though they are reportedly offering complete refunds for digital copies on a case-by-case basis.
This is more bad news for Anthem, which has faced harsh criticism for numerous performance and gameplay issues. It now sits as one of the worst reviewed BioWare games in the company’s history. Some players are now asking how something, that was supposedly in development for six years, could have been released in such a sorry state.
That’s one issue I’ve covered to death on here over the years. The general lack of quality control, with a “ship now and patch later” attitude, has resulted in many games launching in an incomplete state. This is being further compounded by the generally dysfunctional nature and lack of focus that seems to be plaguing many big Triple A studios.
Though it seems things are finally starting to catch up to them, as several blockbuster games have failed to meet investor expectations. Copies of Anthem have already been spotted at deep discount, much like another technically incompetent stinker that Besthesda a few months ago.
EA has been rather quiet on the issue. Apparently the crashing issue has been a problem since the Beta, so you’d imagine they’d be aware of it. So far though, there is no word of a potential fix coming down the pipeline. I would highly recommend that players experiencing problems stop playing it until a patch is confirmed, as this issue could potentially brick your console.
Title image by Rocketyrion, via Reddit.