Anthem is permanently offline. EA shut down the servers of BioWare’s 2019 looter-shooter on 12 January 2026, and because the game was online-only, nothing in it can be played, including the solo campaign. BioWare had already cancelled its planned rework almost five years earlier, in February 2021.
Anthem Died Twice: 2021 and 2026
Anthem has two separate end dates, and most coverage blurs them into one. Development stopped in February 2021; the servers kept running for almost five more years before EA switched them off.
The first ending came on 24 February 2021, when BioWare published a blog post titled “Anthem Update” written by Christian Dailey. It confirmed the studio was halting work on the planned overhaul, which players and press had been calling Anthem NEXT. Dailey wrote that working from home during the pandemic had affected productivity, and that BioWare needed to concentrate on the next Dragon Age and Mass Effect games.
That overhaul had been announced a year earlier. In February 2020, then studio head Casey Hudson said the game would get a “substantial reinvention” of its core experience. Nothing from that effort ever shipped. In the same 2021 post, BioWare said the live service would carry on as it was.
The second ending was announced on 3 July 2025, when EA confirmed the servers would close on 12 January 2026. That gave existing players a little over six months. The game left EA Play and Game Pass on 15 August 2025 and was delisted from the Steam, PlayStation and Xbox storefronts, so nobody new could buy it.
| Date | What happened |
|---|---|
| 22 February 2019 | Anthem launches on PlayStation 4, Windows and Xbox One |
| February 2020 | Casey Hudson announces a “substantial reinvention” of the game |
| 24 February 2021 | BioWare cancels the rework; live servers stay online |
| 3 July 2025 | EA announces the shutdown date |
| 15 August 2025 | Anthem leaves EA Play and Game Pass and is delisted from stores |
| 12 January 2026 | Servers switch off and the game becomes unplayable |
Can You Still Play Anthem?
No. There is no official or legal way to play Anthem, and that includes players who still own a disc or an installed copy.
Anthem always required a live connection to BioWare’s servers, even for its single-player story. No offline mode was ever added, so when the servers went down the entire game went with them. Owners can still install it, but it will not get past the loading screens.
EA did not offer refunds. Reporting in July 2025 confirmed that neither the game itself nor any microtransactions bought during its run were refundable, which drew criticism given the game could no longer be launched at all. Players who bought the premium currency shortly before the announcement got nothing back. Other publishers have removed paid live-service content the same way, as happened when Epic cut Rocket Racing from Fortnite in October 2026.
One fan effort exists, but it is not a playable revival. In January 2026 a YouTuber working under the name And799 published a proof-of-concept showing two Anthem clients connected in a session after the shutdown. The creator described it as research and experimentation, and said explicitly that it did not represent a separate private-server project. Because almost all player data lived on BioWare’s servers, saved progress cannot be restored, and many in-game menus do not function.
Current status as of 16 October 2026: Anthem remains offline, no public fan server has launched, and there has been no verified public update on any revival attempt since January 2026. EA still owns the game, and comparable fan revivals of discontinued titles have drawn takedown notices from publishers.
Why Did Anthem Fail?
Anthem failed because it reviewed badly, shipped with progress-blocking bugs, and was largely built in the final year of a seven-year development.
The review scores were the clearest signal. Anthem holds a Metacritic score of 59 on PC, 54 on PlayStation 4 and 65 on Xbox One. EA had told the team it was aiming for a game scoring in the 70s.
The development history explains much of the rest:
- A long, unsettled start: work began in 2012 after Mass Effect 3 under Casey Hudson, with the internal codename “Dylan” and the working title “Beyond”, which was dropped because EA considered it too hard to trademark.
- Leadership turnover: Hudson left BioWare around August 2014 and did not return as studio head until October 2017, part-way through the project.
- Engine friction: the team struggled to build a loot-driven shooter in Frostbite 3, and features such as survival and crafting were cut along the way.
- Compressed production: developers told Kotaku in 2019 that the core gameplay loop, the story and the missions were all made in the last 12 to 16 months.
- A delayed release: in January 2018 the launch slipped from late 2018 into early 2019.
At launch in February 2019, players hit bugs that blocked progress into the endgame, long load times and a loot system that handed out small, unsatisfying upgrades. For a game sold on a ten-year live-service plan, the thin endgame was the structural problem rather than a rough edge.
Did Anthem Actually Sell Badly?
Anthem sold millions of copies but missed EA’s internal target, and that gap is what ended the project rather than outright commercial collapse.
EA had aimed for 6 million copies by the end of March 2019. Chief executive Andrew Wilson confirmed the target was not met. Chief financial officer Blake Jorgensen told investors that the launch of Anthem did not meet the company’s expectations.
The early figures were not weak in isolation. Anthem generated more than $100 million in digital revenue in February 2019, including roughly $3.5 million from in-game purchases, according to SuperData. It topped the UK retail chart in its first week, though Eurogamer reported launch-week retail sales at about half those of Mass Effect: Andromeda. It also led the Japanese chart with 78,000 copies at launch, and NPD data gave it the second-highest launch-month sales of any BioWare game in North America, behind Mass Effect 3.
A lifetime figure of about 5 million copies circulates widely, but it traces back to a former EA employee’s LinkedIn post rather than any company disclosure. EA has never published a lifetime sales number for Anthem.
What Happened to BioWare After Anthem?
BioWare still exists but is a fraction of its former size, and it is now working on Mass Effect alone.
The studio shipped Dragon Age: The Veilguard in October 2024. Rounds of layoffs and permanent staff transfers to other EA studios followed, and reporting in early 2025 put BioWare below 100 employees. EA has not published a current headcount, saying only that the studio has the right number of people in the right roles for this stage of development.
A BioWare spokesperson said that with Veilguard shipped, the studio’s full focus is Mass Effect. The next entry, commonly called Mass Effect 5, has been in pre-production since early 2025. Executive producer Michael Gamble said in April 2026 that the team was still too early in development to show anything, and no release date has been announced.
Shrinking is not the only outcome for a studio behind a troubled project. Some are sold rather than closed, as happened when Microsoft divested Ninja Theory in July 2026.
Frequently Asked Questions
When Exactly Did Anthem Go Offline?
The servers were switched off on 12 January 2026, announced by EA on 3 July 2025.
Did Anyone Get Money Back?
No. Neither the purchase price nor in-game currency was refunded.
Was Anthem NEXT Ever Released?
No. The overhaul was abandoned on 24 February 2021 without any of it reaching players.
Is Anthem Still on Game Pass or EA Play?
No. It was pulled from both on 15 August 2025 and removed from digital stores at the same time.
Could Anthem Return in Some Form?
Nothing has been announced. EA retains the rights, and no revival is in development as of 16 October 2026.
Is BioWare Still Operating?
Yes, with fewer than 100 staff and a single project in pre-production.
