EA has announced it will shut down the live-service game Anthem on January 12, 2026. Due to the nature of the game being always online, this will render the BioWare-developed title unplayable after that point, with no plans to create an offline experience for players who have purchased the game being planned at this point. This is in contrast to games like Suicide Squad: Kill The Justice League that did update their titles shortly after the announcement they would end to allow for the continued use of the title through an offline play mode.
Premium in-game currency has stopped being sold as of the date of this announcement, July 3rd, though existing balances can still be used to purchase content up until the point the servers are officially turned off. In addition, the game will be removed from EA Play, EA’s game streaming service, on August 15, 2025, but will remain available to download should you already have it added to your library.
Anthem launched back in 2019 to a host of mediocre reviews criticizing elements ranging from the amount of grinding, lack of any polish, and poor storytelling. It went on to sell 5 million copies by December of 2023, which was a far cry from EA’s sales goal of 6 million in only a few months of sales. While the game received some updates and patches to improve several of the issues, its biggest planned update, one intended to serve as a revamp of the entire game, was ultimately cancelled with EA ceasing all further updates as of February 2021.
Anthem developer BioWare has become best known for single-player RPGs such as Dragon Age and Mass Effect, making a live service game outside of their wheelhouse. A hyper-realistic trailer for the game was released in 2017, showcasing a cinematic world to explore with friends that, years later, we would find out was created before the game even had any real direction to it, or had even entered development. BioWare recently released Dragon Age: The Veilguard, which languished in development hell for nearly a decade and at one point was also almost made into a live service title at the behest of EA. They are currently focused on developing Mass Effect 5.
EA, back in May, closed Cliffhanger Games after canceling their Black Panther game, terminating a number of employees in the process, and implementing a mandatory return-to-office policy for all employees. This followed shortly after the publisher terminated 300 employees.
Remember to follow us on Twitter, Facebook, and Bluesky to keep up to date on everything we have going on!
