EA’s Biggest Failure of the Past Decade Is Shutting Down in One Month

What is likely the biggest failure that Electronic Arts has had over the past decade is set to finally reach its end in roughly one month. While EA publishes many of the biggest franchises in the world, such as Madden, EA Sports FC, and Battlefield, it has also had plenty of rough releases throughout its long history. Titles like Mass Effect: Andromeda, Star Wars Battlefront II, and Battlefield 2042 are just some of the handful of titles in recent memory that struggled in one way or another for EA once they saw the light of day. Now, what is surely one of the biggest missteps that EA has ever had will be meeting its demise in a move planned for early next month.

The game in question that’s soon set to be shut down is that of Anthem. Released in early 2019, Anthem was meant to be a new live-service game from acclaimed studio BioWare. Instead of turning into a long-term project for the studio, though, Anthem was more or less dead in the first six months of its launch. Critics and players alike found that its gameplay loop grew stale very quickly, even if some of its mechanics were fun and engaging. Despite some positives, it paled in comparison to competitors like Destiny 2 and Warframe, which left players abandoning it in droves. Even after BioWare tried to revive the game by reworking many of its core systems, the studio eventually decided that this effort wasn’t worth the time, which resulted in total abandonment of Anthem by 2021.

In the four years since this move, Anthem has remained live for anyone to play. However, this won’t remain true for much longer. EA announced earlier in 2025 that Anthem would be shut down for good in early 2026. Now, that date is quickly approaching.

On January 12, 2026, Anthem will see its servers shut down completely. Due to its nature as an online-only title, this will render Anthem entirely unplayable, even for those who happen to own physical or digital copies of the game. While some games that EA has shut down previously were still accessible in single-player modes, this won’t be true with Anthem.

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In short, if you have the desire to check out Anthem whatsoever, you’ll want to make sure that you dive back in over the coming weeks. Although the game is surely dead at this point, Anthem might warrant checking out simply as a historical touchstone in EA’s history. If you don’t opt to revisit Anthem in the month ahead, you’ll never have another opportunity to do so again.

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