Why did EA cancel Anthem?
Despite some positive sales achievements, reaching over 5 million lifetime sales, the game failed to meet commercial expectations. Although BioWare announced in February 2020 that they would be reinventing the core gameplay of Anthem as part of a long-term plan, all future development ceased in February 2021. On Thursday, July 3rd, 2025, EA (Bioware) announced on the Anthem website that on the 12th of January, 2026, All Anthem servers would be shut down and the game will no longer be playable after that date.Q: How long will I have to play Anthem? A: Game servers will be available until January 12, 2026 at which time the game will no longer be playable.Anthem Is Being Wiped From Existence – Forever BioWare’s ambitious-but-troubled looter shooter #Anthem will become permanently unplayable on January 12, 2026.Since it’s online-only, it will become unplayable after that date. Premium currency sales have stopped starting July 3, 2025, though existing balances can be used until shutdown. Anthem will be removed from EA Play on August 15, 2025, but if it’s already in your library, you can still play until the final shutdown.There are no plans to add an offline mode to Anthem so it is completely unplayable.
Did EA shut down Anthem?
EA and BioWare have shut down Anthem’s online servers as of January 12, 2026. Since the game was online-only, it is now completely unplayable, even in solo mode. On July 3, 2025, sales of premium in-game currency were discontinued, and it was announced that Anthem’s servers would be shut down on January 12, 2026; since the game’s content resides on its servers, its closure would render the game unplayable.EA is shutting down servers for several games in early 2026 as part of ongoing server cleanups, specifically Anthem (Jan 12), The Sims Mobile (Jan 20), and NBA Live (Jan 30), making them unplayable as they’ve already been delisted.EA and BioWare just announced that Anthem’s servers will go offline on January 12, 2026—nearly seven years after it first launched in 2019. A lot of gamers might be surprised to hear that Anthem was still alive until now.
Why did EA abandon Anthem?
Former exec Mark Darrah revealed that Anthem was essentially abandoned because EA didn’t see it as “big enough to fix,” unlike Battlefield or The Sims. Anthem done correctly would’ve given Bungie competition, which would’ve been good for both games, Anthem and Destiny. We don’t have enough sci-fi coop shooters. As a semi-committed Destiny 2 player, it’s hard not to keep Bungie’s work in the back of my mind as I take my first steps into this world, even if those steps quickly give way to rocket-powered hovering. So here’s the salient point: Anthem is in no ways a Destiny clone.