Surprise! The Anthem servers are still running—but they won't be after January 12

Electronic Arts pulled the plug on Anthem in early 2021, finally putting an end to BioWare's ill-advised foray into the looter shooter genre. The game itself continued to run, though, quietly trundling along like an empty subway cleaving through the pre-dawn hours of a cold, forgotten Tuesday. But the ride is almost over.

"We have an important update to share regarding Anthem," Electronic Arts announced today. "After careful consideration, we will be sunsetting Anthem on January 12, 2026. This means that the game will still be playable online for the next 180+ days. As of today, you can no longer purchase in-game premium currency, but you can still use your remaining balance until the servers go offline.

"We deeply appreciate your dedication, passion and support over the years and we’d like to thank you for that."

First things first, yes, the Anthem servers are actually still up, so you can hop in and play it if this reminder of its existence has triggered the urge. I had no idea—to be perfectly honest I hadn't given it any thought one way or another over the past several years, but I was a genuinely surprised to hear that servers are still running and everything remains functional.

I even got it into my head to give Anthem a fresh try, to see if it was really all that bad or just the wrong game at the wrong time. Alas, it turns out the only way to get it these days is to sign up for EA Play, a Game Pass-style subscription service. EA Play is included with PC Game Pass so you can also take it out for a spin if you subscribe to that service, but I don't, so I guess we're filing that one under "nice idea" and moving on.

An FAQ about the shutdown is mostly a repeat of what's in the announcement, but there are a few notable points. If you own Anthem you'll be able to continue playing until the shutdown on January 12, 2026, but it will be removed from EA Play on August 15 so if you're getting it that way, that's your end date.

EA also confirmed that "the sunsetting of Anthem has not led to any layoffs," a bizarre thing to say that perhaps reveals a certain urge to downplay EA's contributions to the catastrophic state of the game industry—especially when it comes to BioWare, which has reportedly already been pared down to the bone.

The FAQ also addresses offline play by noting that there is no offline play: "Anthem was designed to be an online-only title so once the servers go offline, the game will no longer be playable." More grist for the Stop Killing Games initiative there.

It's kind of a shame. I won't go so far as to say that Anthem 2.0 showed promise, but Anthem's in-game flight was really good and it would've been interesting to see what BioWare could have done with another year of proper support from EA. Would it have been a success? Probably not, but it would've been interesting.