Anthem is an online multiplayer action role-playing game that debuted in February this year. Since its release, several bugs have been reported by the players and many of those have been fixed by Electronic Arts. Players are now reporting a new problem of Anthem Freeplay mode crashing on the PS4, Xbox One and PC.
Several affected players have taken to social media platforms, including Reddit to complain about their Anthem Freeplay mode crashing. As per the affected users, the game is frequently crashing and sometimes right after starting it, notes tech site PiunikaWeb.
“I recently bought Anthem after not playing it since release (10-hour trial), and now it crashes on me within 2 – 10 minutes of starting freeplay,” one Reddit user said.
Though the crash occurrences are more in the freeplay mode, users have noticed game crashing in other missions as well. “Mainly, in freeplay or ending it, but sometimes also doing other things or even just in menu’s or the fort. Probably like 1 or 2 times in a 3 hour stretch of playing. Sometimes less, sometimes maybe slightly more,” a Reddit user said.
Several PS4 players report getting an error CE-34878-0 resulting in the crashing of the game. It is a general error suggesting that the game running on the console has crashed. Players usually need to restart the game to play the game again, but this trick is not helping here as the game is crashing frequently.
Affected users say they have tried the usual trouble shooting tricks, such as uninstalling and reinstalling, resetting the console, moving the install to internal storage and more, but none seems to be helping.
For now, there are no comments from Electronic Arts or the developer BioWare Studios. So, there is no information of when this issue will be fixed. There are no workarounds either, but there is a workaround for the PS4 error CE-34878-0. Here is a workaround for the error CE-34878-0: first close the app, and install the latest game and System Software updates, and then restart the system.
Next, if you upgraded the Hard Disk Drive (HDD), then you will need to reinstall the original HDD. Now try playing the game and if you get the error again, take a backup of your data and go to Settings > Initialization > Initialize PS4. If you get the error again, then you must contact the support team.
Though there is no word on when these crashes will get fixed, many believe that the upcoming Cataclysm event update could fix the issue. “I guess I’ll wait until we get Cataclysm and see if that fixes it. If not, I’ll try to sell it to the next victim on eBay,” one user said.
The Anthem Freeplay mode crashing is not the only issue that gamers are currently reporting. Some are also facing a rubber banding issue as well. “I’m getting rubber-banding weird mechanics like my rifle going to -3 before it reloads and a lot of freezing and frame skipping and of course blue screen crashes every 5 to 15 minutes,” a Reddit user said.
Other users also chipped in with the rubber banding experience, saying sometimes they are unable to shoot or use abilities. “Yeah, I get the rubber banding sometimes too. Even drop in with someone else’s armor and colors,” an affected user said.
Hopefully, this issue will also be fixed with the Cataclysm update. Talking of the Cataclysm event, it is long overdue and was initially expected to arrive in May. BioWare has been testing it for quite some time now.
Anthem has been a disappointment on several fronts. Electronic Arts CEO Andrew Wilson partly admitted this a couple of months back, but added that they will still continue with the game.
A big challenge that Anthem developers faced was to bring two different types of players together – those looking for a BioWare-style single-player epic and those wanting ongoing multiplayer loot-shooter action.
“About the 30 or 40 hour mark they (both types of players mentioned above) really had to come together and start working in on the elder game. At that point everyone kind of went, ‘Oh, hang a minute.’ Now the calculation is off,” Wilson said in an interview with GameDaily.biz. “The promise was we can play together, and that’s not working very well.”
Moreover, EA didn’t even really discuss the game during its Q1 2020 investor call. At the earnings call, the company discussed its future, upcoming and current products, including Apex Legends, Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order, FIFA and Madden. Though Anthem’s name came up twice during the discussion, it was quickly discussed.
The first mention was from COO and CFO Blake Jorgensen, who noted that the game sold well digitally, and thus, has inspired EA to tweak its revenue model. The second mention was in the context of creating a new IP from scratch. Apart from these, there was no real mention of Anthem, such as its progress, its future and more.
