Publisher EA and developer BioWare have announced that ill-fated live-service looter-shooter (boy, that’s a lot of hyphens) Anthem will be shut down early next year.
In an FAQ on the publisher’s official website, the two studios confirm that Anthem will cease operations on January 12th, at which point “the game will no longer be playable”. There won’t be any kind of single-player mode, EA and BioWare say, because Anthem was “designed to be an online-only title”.
If you’ve previously purchased Anthem and haven’t installed it for a while, you’ll still be able to do so right up until January 12th, but this really is the end for the game; after that date, you can’t download it or play it anymore.
Naturally, it’s no longer possible to purchase Anthem from digital storefronts, although it will remain on the EA Play subscription service (which is also included with certain tiers of Xbox Game Pass) until August 15th.
Additionally, you can still spend any in-game currency you might have left over until January 12th, so if there’s anything in Anthem‘s shop you’ve had your eye on, you might want to pick it up before it’s too late.
EA says that Anthem‘s shutdown “has not led to any layoffs”, although given that the studio appears to have just emerged from a fresh layoff wave, that might not be the case for long. Then again, the writing’s been on the wall for Anthem for some time, so it’s not like its shutdown has come as a surprise.
Anthem was released in early 2019 to divided opinion. Some praised its mech combat, while others lamented its weak story and lack of content. Incidentally, our very own Sam did both of these things when he reviewed it at launch.
Player response was equally mixed, and while a major update known as Anthem Next was planned to revitalize the flagging shooter, the update was eventually canceled in early 2021, and Anthem has flagged ever since.
If you want to check out Anthem before its shutdown in January, you can do so with an EA Play membership. It’s not available separately via any other digital platforms.
