BioWare's attempt at a big live-service and always-online game, Anthem, is officially no more. As the clock struck 10 AM PT, the online servers for Anthem started to be shutdown. This means that the game is no longer playable by anybody ever again.
Electronic Arts and BioWare announced back in July 2025 that they would be taking the Anthem servers offline on January 12. As it so happens to be January 12, 2026, they did indeed take the servers offline for good.
A small dedicated group of players stuck around until the very end, with some even streaming the shutdown live on Twitch. Several players, mostly those who hunt for achievements, went back to playing Anthem over the previous few months to earn what is now no longer achievable.
According to anecdotes shared by IGN, players reported getting booted from Anthem right at 10:03 AM PT. These players saw "warnings of a connection problem" and were then sent back to the startup screen. Attempts to get back into the game proper proved to be futile.
Anthem originally released on February 15, 2019. According to Metacritic, reviews for the game were mediocre at best, sitting at a 59% critical average. User scores were even worse at 4.1 out of 10. Despite poor reviews, Anthem sold over 5 million copies for EA but failed to meet internal sales targets within the studio. Active development on Anthem came to an end in early 2021 as BioWare shifted focus onto Dragon Age: The Veilguard development.
Though Anthem is officially offline for good, dedicated fans are starting to look into the possibility of creating custom servers. These efforts are still very early so it's too early to tell if Anthem will one day return in any capacity.
