Anthem server shutdown
On July 3, 2025, Electronic Arts (EA) and BioWare announced the "sunsetting", or server shutdown, of their video game Anthem, with January 12, 2026, set as the shutdown date.[1] Premium in-game currency was taken off sale on the same day as the announcement,[1] and the game was removed from the EA Play and Xbox Game Pass Ultimate libraries on August 15, 2025.[2] Anthem is an "online-only title", so the game will no longer be playable after sunset.[1]
Background
Post-Release Trajectory
Anthem is an online multiplayer role-playing game (RPG) developed by BioWare and published by EA. The game was released on February 22, 2019,[3] and had widely "lukewarm reviews",[2] such as IGN's 6.5/10 and Game Informer's 7/10.[4][5] Due to this mixed reception, the game's sales failed to reach EA's March 2019 target of 5-6 million copies,[6] only reaching the milestone in December 2023.[2] Despite this, active development of the game continued, and a major update dubbed "Anthem 2.0" was announced to be in the works in October 2020.[5] However, this update was cancelled and active development of the game was discontinued in February 2021 as BioWare shifted resources towards other projects.[2][5]
Always-Online Functionality
Anthem was designed to be played with up to three other people online,[7] so the game has dedicated centralized servers to allow this. Apart from that, the servers are also responsible for all other game operations, which includes single-player missions.[8] This means that the functioning of the entire video game is completely dependent upon the operational status of these centralized servers, and that an Internet connection will always be required to play Anthem, regardless of whether a person fully owns a copy of the game, be it physical or digital.
Sunset/Server Shutdown
The BioWare team posted an update on Anthem's website on July 3, 2025, stating that the game will be sunset on January 12, 2026.[1] In the FAQ section of the update, the team announced that the game would be removed from the EA Play library, which removes the game from the Xbox Game Pass Ultimate library by extension, on
EA's Terms of Service
Lawsuit
Consumer response
References
- ↑ 1.0 1.1 1.2 1.3 https://www.ea.com/games/anthem/news/anthem-game-update
- ↑ 2.0 2.1 2.2 2.3 https://in.ign.com/bioware-edmonton-project/235520/news/ea-will-shut-down-anthem-in-january
- ↑ https://www.gamespot.com/articles/anthem-was-released-two-years-ago-a-quick-recap-of-its-history-and-what-could-come-next/1100-6487883/
- ↑ https://in.ign.com/bioware-edmonton-project
- ↑ 5.0 5.1 5.2 https://gameinformer.com/review/anthem/grinding-gears
- ↑ https://www.gamedeveloper.com/game-platforms/-i-anthem-i-fell-short-of-ea-s-sales-expectations
- ↑ https://www.ea.com/games/anthem
- ↑ https://anthem.fandom.com/wiki/Anthem