Anthem

BioWare's Iron Man shooter, abandoned in 2021 and unplugged in 2026

Shut down
19902026

Anthem was BioWare and Electronic Arts's online-only shooter in which players flew exosuits called javelins over an alien world, revealed at E3 2017 and released on 22 February 2019 after a troubled seven-year development. Poorly received and quickly deserted, it was left in maintenance after EA cancelled its planned overhaul in February 2021. EA closed the servers on 12 January 2026, making every copy unplayable.

Timeline [edit]

  1. 2012
  2. 2012 Launch
    Development begins as "Dylan"

    BioWare starts a new universe after Mass Effect 3.

  3. 2017
  4. 10 June 2017 Feature
    Revealed at E3

    Javelin suits diving into a jungle; the demo steals the show.

  5. 2019
  6. 22 February 2019 Launch
    Anthem releases

    Mixed reviews, load times, a PS4-crashing bug.

  7. 7 May 2019 Decline
    EA says Anthem missed expectations

    Physical sales about half of Mass Effect: Andromeda's.

  8. 2020
  9. 10 February 2020 Feature
    "Anthem NEXT" is announced

    A small team will rebuild the core of the game.

  10. 2021
  11. 24 February 2021 Decline
    The overhaul is cancelled

    The game stays as it is, in maintenance.

  12. 2025
  13. 3 July 2025 Shutdown announced
    EA sets the shutdown date

    Servers close on 12 January 2026; no refunds, no offline mode.

  14. 2026
  15. 12 January 2026 Shutdown
    The servers close

    Every copy of Anthem stops working.

The site through time

Browse ea.com as it was, via the Internet Archive's Wayback Machine:

2019 2020 2021 2022 2023 2024 2025 2026 Full archive →

Ownership [edit]

BioWare / Electronic Arts 2012–2026 Founded Developed by BioWare Edmonton and published by EA, which owns the studio

Why it shut down [edit]

Official line: Anthem sold about half of what BioWare's previous game had at launch and lost its players within weeks to bugs, load times and a thin endgame. EA cancelled the planned "Anthem NEXT" overhaul on 24 February 2021 and left the game in maintenance. On 3 July 2025 EA announced the servers would close on 12 January 2026; because Anthem was online-only, the shutdown made the game unplayable for everyone who owned it.

Our analysis: Anthem was the story-studio's attempt at a Destiny-style live game, and its development, later documented in detail, was years of indecision followed by eighteen months of crunch. Flying in a javelin suit felt wonderful; almost everything around it, loot, missions, loading screens, was unfinished. EA had the choice of rebuilding it or walking away, and in 2021 chose to walk. Five years later it switched off a game people had paid full price for, with no refund and no offline mode.

History [edit]

Project Dylan

BioWare, the Edmonton studio behind Mass Effect and Dragon Age, began the project in 2012 as a new universe with the working name Dylan; the goal, as EA saw it, was a shared-world shooter that could sit alongside Destiny. It was revealed as Anthem at E3 in June 2017 with a demo of players in flying "javelin" exosuits diving from a cliff into a jungle, and it looked spectacular. Behind the scenes, later reporting showed, the vision had changed repeatedly, the studio's Frostbite engine tools fought it every step, and most of the game that shipped was built in the last eighteen months.

Launch

Anthem released on 22 February 2019 on PlayStation 4, Xbox One and Windows, after an EA Access early-access week that revealed its problems to everyone with a subscription. Reviews were mixed: the flying and the combat were praised, the story, loot, mission structure and repeated loading screens were not, and a bug that crashed PlayStation 4 consoles hard made headlines. Physical sales in the UK were about half of Mass Effect: Andromeda's, and by May EA acknowledged the game had missed its expectations. The promised roadmap of updates was quietly abandoned; the long-delayed Cataclysm event arrived in August 2019 to a much smaller audience.

Anthem NEXT, and not

In February 2020 BioWare announced a small team would rebuild the game's core, an overhaul that became known as Anthem NEXT. On 24 February 2021, after EA reviewed the project, BioWare announced it was stopping work on the overhaul and would keep the existing game running as it was, with the studio refocused on Dragon Age and Mass Effect. Anthem entered four years of maintenance mode with a small but loyal group of players still flying.

The plug

On 3 July 2025 EA announced that Anthem's servers would shut down on 12 January 2026, that in-game currency purchases would stop and the game would leave stores in August, and that there would be no refunds. Because Anthem had no offline mode, the shutdown made every copy, disc or download, unplayable. The servers closed on schedule; the last players filmed their final flights.

The domain today

ea.com is Electronic Arts's. The Anthem pages there now carry the shutdown notice, and the game cannot be bought or played.

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Sources [edit]

  1. E3 2017: BioWare reveals new project Anthem IGN 10 June 2017 [archived]
  2. How BioWare's Anthem went wrong Kotaku 2 April 2019 [archived]
  3. Anthem fails to meet EA's expectations GameSpot 7 May 2019 [archived]
  4. Anthem update BioWare 24 February 2021 [archived]
  5. EA will shut down Anthem in January IGN 3 July 2025 [archived]
  6. EA is completely shutting down Anthem, and no, you can't get a refund Forbes 4 July 2025 [archived]

Last verified: 15 August 2026. Spotted an error? Suggest an edit (corrections with sources are reviewed and applied).