Anthem says goodbye: EA will shut down its servers and it will no longer be playable

EA announces the total closure of Anthem: no servers or offline version from 2026.

More stories in the category Xbox Live

• On July 30, servers of another Xbox game will be closed
• Rust and 20 other games join Xbox’s “play your own game” library
• 5 ways to share your Xbox Game Pass subscription with family or friends in 2025

One of the most ambitious and controversial games of the last decade now has a shutdown date. Electronic Arts has announced that access to the game will be permanently discontinued in January 2026, and it will not be possible to play it even in single-player or offline mode.

The reason is clear: it was conceived from the start as an exclusively online title. This has been confirmed by the company on its official website, where it has published an update explaining the withdrawal process and answering frequently asked questions.

Anthem will shut down forever in January 2026 and will not have offline mode

The game in question is Anthem, the cooperative open-world shooter developed by BioWare and published by EA. According to the company itself, the servers will close on January 12, 2026, at which point it will no longer be available on all platforms. They also clarify that no offline mode will be enabled, as it “was designed to be an exclusively online game”.

• Until then, it will remain available on Xbox Game Pass Ultimate and PC Game Pass through EA Play, but only until August 15, 2025. Additionally, all microtransactions have been removed as of today, as a step prior to the shutdown. The decision marks the definitive end of a project that had already been abandoned in 2021, after several failed attempts to relaunch it.

End of something that never quite worked

We have an important update to share about Anthem. After careful consideration, Anthem will no longer be available on January 12, 2026. This means that the game will remain available online for the next 180 days. As of today, premium in-game currency can no longer be purchased, but any remaining balance can be used until the servers are disconnected.

We deeply appreciate your dedication, passion, and support over the years and would like to thank you for it.

A conclusion that many were expecting, but which is still symbolic. Anthem will go down in history as one of the most complex and problematic projects in BioWare’s trajectory.