The Countdown Begins: Anthem's Servers Set to Go Dark Soon

Time flies (like a Javelin suit): there are only 10 days left to play BioWare's ill-fated multiplayer game Anthem before the servers are switched off, presumably forever.

We've had this end date in the diary since EA announced it last summer. "After careful consideration, we will be sunsetting Anthem on January 12, 2026," the company said. That day seemed far away then; now, it does not.

It's not yet clear whether there'll be a 'switching off event' of any kind. I'm trying to find out.

Because Anthem is an online multiplayer game, once EA switches the servers off, you won't be able to play it, regardless of if you own it or not. This is an aspect of modern live service gaming many people are frustrated by - this disappearance of games they bought but can no longer play. It has led to movements like Stop Destroying Games and Stop Killing Games, which are petitioning governments hoping to implement protections against such outcomes.

However, if a game is not attracting a large enough audience to justify the expenditure of ongoing server costs, which I don't think Anthem was, then what's a company to do — run it at a loss? Or release the code for the community to host their own servers? The latter option may not be as straightforward as it sounds.

Regardless, Anthem's demise appears symbolic in the story of BioWare—a company famed for single-player role-playing experiences that was encouraged and perhaps pressured to venture into a multiplayer game that didn’t pan out. It was, as a key person involved in the project once described, a "dichotomy"—a game that attempted to embody both a BioWare experience and a multiplayer game but ended up being neither. Anthem was aptly described by a reviewer as a game "shaken apart by its own identity crisis."

There were plans for overhauling Anthem—ambitious plans for a 2.0 reboot that aimed to revitalize the experience—but these were eventually scrapped.

Anthem's misfortunes in 2019 compounded those of Mass Effect: Andromeda in 2017, leaving BioWare in a difficult position following the success of Dragon Age: Inquisition in 2014. The anticipated Dragon Age: The Veilguard, set for release in 2024 after a tumultuous decade of development—including attempts at turning it into a multiplayer game—failed to ease the pressure.

With all eyes on the in-development fifth Mass Effect game, the stakes for BioWare's future have never been higher. However, with EA's sports-focused acquisition approach advancing, there's little certainty about what direction the new ownership could take.