Anthem, the failed try at a live-service sport by Mass Impact and Dragon Age developer BioWare, is now offline for good.
This morning, shortly after 10am Pacific time, Anthem’s remaining gamers reported seeing the sport’s servers blinking out of existence, rendering the sport totally unplayable, perpetually.
BioWare had not given a particular time for when Anthem’s switch-off would happen, and as a substitute solely indicated the sport would stay on-line till right now, January 12, earlier than its elimination. Nonetheless, a small cluster of followers had been monitoring Anthem’s ultimate hours, and some dozen had been enjoying the sport on Twitch to see out its ultimate moments.
At round 10.03am Pacific, in-game gamers reported getting out of the blue booted as the plug was pulled. After warnings of a connection drawback, gamers have been left sitting again on the Anthem’s startup display, displaying the sport’s emblem and its characters — now left to perpetually tinker with their amored Javelin fits, which is able to by no means fly once more.
“Of all the lifeless dwell video games, that is considered one of the most painful, as the sport was so very near greatness,” wrote Anthem fan Marcel Hatam on X/Twitter. “Nice core gameplay with enjoyable fight and flying, an intriguing world and nice customization. Freelancer signing off 🫡.”
“Rattling needed to get a number of extra hours earlier than closure, unhappy,” wrote new fan Regis by way of BioWare’s Discord, who mentioned they’d solely given Anthem a do this month after studying it was shutting down. “Bought to play the sport for only a week but it surely already leaves a gap in my chest.”
Anthem launched in February 2019 to lukewarm opinions, together with IGN’s personal, which criticized the sport’s grindiness, lack of polish and mismatched story. The sport offered greater than 5 million copies however failed to fulfill EA’s personal inner targets, set after an extended and troubled improvement. Regardless of some effort to additional replace and enhance the sport, BioWare ceased energetic improvement on Anthem again in February 2021, citing a have to prioritize Dragon Age: The Veilguard (which launched in late 2024 to its personal set of combined suggestions) and Mass Impact 5 (which continues to be seemingly years away).
Anthem writer EA introduced final 12 months that it will cease operating the sport’s servers right now, and confirmed that customers would not have the opportunity play in any respect after this level. Premium in-game foreign money was withdrawn from sale final summer season, and the sport was delisted at the similar time from EA Play.
An internet-only motion RPG unfold throughout a big multiplayer map, Anthem had no offline choice — that means that the sport’s world, characters and lore at the moment are formally gone for good. However as IGN reported final week, there are fledgling efforts underway by followers to carry Anthem again on-line by way of customized servers, although it’s too early to inform precisely how far this feature would possibly progress.
Tom Phillips is IGN’s Information Editor. You may attain Tom at tom_phillips@ign.com or discover him on Bluesky @tomphillipseg.bsky.social