Anthem will no longer be playable after January 2026
While it seems as though a new live service title pops up and subsequently shuts down on a daily basis at the moment, one of the first major swings (and misses) came with EA and BioWare’s Anthem. Released back in 2019, the sci-fi RPG looter-shooter quickly failed – leading EA to scrap future content plans. Though the game has remained playable until now, EA has officially announced that Anthem is going offline in early 2026.
While Anthem has been pretty much dead ever since the game’s big 2.0 revamp was cancelled back in 2020, BioWare’s failed live-service shooter has remained playable, despite being an always-online experience.
Unfortunately, as with pretty much all games with similar requirements, Anthem was living on borrowed time. Taking to their website, the team at BioWare announced that: “After careful consideration, we will be sunsetting Anthem on January 12, 2026.”
Though I doubt many players were taking advantage, BioWare also confirmed that starting from now you won’t be able to purchase any additional in-game currency, though any currency you already have will remain usable.
Releasing an FAQ alongside the announcement, the team explained why no offline option is being given, writing “Anthem was designed to be an online-only title so once the servers go offline, the game will no longer be playable.”
Of course, we’ve seen plenty of online-only games release a patch ahead of its discontinuation to allow for users to play offline. In this instance though, it appears EA has no interest in spending the time/money to facilitate this.
As mentioned, in the 5 years since Anthem’s launch, there have been countless live-service failures – many which managed to outdo EA’s efforts in the scope of its failings. Even so, the tragic tale of Anthem is one that will be remembered.
KitGuru says: What did you think of the game back in the day? Did it have potential? What’s the most memorable live-service failure to you? Let us know your thoughts down below.
