Anthem is finally shutting down after years of neglect from Bioware

Anthem, a game that has gone down as one of Bioware’s biggest misses, is shutting down online services after years with no significant content updates. No refunds will be issued, and the game will be unplayable permanently.

Though Bioware was once known as one of gaming’s greatest development studios, they’ve had a rough patch over the past decade. Between Anthem missing the mark, Mass Effect: Andromeda having mixed reception at best, and Dragon Age: The Veilguard falling short of expectations, Bioware’s been put in a rough spot.

And, despite there at one point being ambitions to create an Anthem 2.0, that project was canned in February 2021, and EA decided to move Bioware’s resources on to bigger and better things. The game has been dead in the water since.

As a result, the looter shooter title has been in maintenance mode for years, and the time has finally come for servers to be shuttered. With no offline mode, that means Anthem will be gone forever.

Anthem will become permanently unplayable in January 2026

News of Anthem’s shutdown comes right as conversation about the Stop Killing Games movement has mounted, with the initiative hitting one million signatures in Europe and possibly prompting legislature against the practice of closing down games permanently.

In the FAQ on EA’s announcement, they said the following about why the game wouldn’t be playable: “Anthem was designed to be an online-only title, so once the servers go offline, the game will no longer be playable.”

So, regardless of how many hours you’ve put into the game or how much you purchased it for, the product you bought will be rendered useless on January 12, 2026.

Electronic Arts

And, while premium currency is no longer purchasable, items bought with this currency aren’t given to players for free, either. They’re just permanently inaccessible.

With Stop Killing Games picking up traction, it should come as no surprise that EA is aiming to take the game offline before possible legislature requiring them to make the game available in some capacity, whether that be an overhaul to make it function offline or giving the source code to a community that could somehow preserve it.

In the event that the games industry changes its practices, there’s a future where what Anthem’s pulling is impossible. For now, though, Anthem is on the chopping block with no plans to keep the game alive in any capacity.