Can Fans Save Anthem? The Unofficial Fight to Revive EA's Shuttered Game

In 2019, Anthem soared onto the scene with the roar of a Javelin’s jetpack. BioWare, the legendary studio behind Mass Effect and Dragon Age, promised a groundbreaking shared-world experience, a live-service looter shooter built for the ages. Today, the official servers are silent. The digital world of Bastion, once buzzing with cooperative flight and combat, exists only in memory clips and unfulfilled potential. The publisher, Electronic Arts, has moved on. But in the quiet spaces of the internet, a different story is being written. A small, dedicated group of developers and fans, led by figures like developer And799, is attempting the near-impossible: to reverse-engineer private servers and bring Anthem back from the dead. Their mission raises a profound question for the modern gaming era: when a corporation pulls the plug on an always-online world, can a passionate community rewire the system and force a resurrection?

The Official End of Anthem's Journey

Anthem’s path to oblivion was as turbulent as its flight mechanics were praised. Released on February 22, 2019, the game arrived burdened with the weight of BioWare’s reputation and EA’s live-service ambitions. Despite a compelling core loop of exosuit-powered combat and exploration, it was plagued at launch by a thin endgame, repetitive content, and technical issues. It failed to meet EA’s commercial targets. By February 2021, BioWare made the difficult but definitive announcement: active development on Anthem’s much-needed overhaul, dubbed "Anthem NEXT," was ceasing. The studio would refocus its efforts on Dragon Age: The Veilguard and the next Mass Effect.

The final shutdown was a drawn-out process. While EA announced the termination of services, reports of the final "lights-out" operation vary, with sources citing dates in 2024. The unambiguous outcome arrived by 2025, when EA delisted Anthem from its EA Play subscription service and withdrew its premium in-game currency, Shards, from sale—definitive signals of the end. For an experience built from the ground up as an always-online service, the server shutdown rendered the game completely unplayable. The official journey was over; the digital door was not just closed, but bricked over.

The Spark of Revival: A Fan-Led Proof of Concept

From this void, a spark emerged. In late 2025, YouTuber and developer And799 released a proof-of-concept video that sent shockwaves through the remnants of the Anthem community. The footage showed a modified Anthem client where two players could join a co-operative multiplayer lobby together. It was a basic but monumental step: proving that the client could be decoupled from EA’s official servers and redirected to a fan-made one.

And799 has been meticulously clear about the project’s nascent state. They describe the build as "really hacky" and strictly experimental, meant for research and preservation. It lacks nearly everything that defines a full game: persistent online profiles, progression, matchmaking, and polish. Yet, its existence is a beacon. This effort is part of a broader, growing trend of fan-driven digital preservation. When Ubisoft shut down the original The Crew in 2024, similar community projects sprang up to keep its open world alive. Anthem’s would-be saviors are part of this same movement—a collective response to the ephemeral nature of live-service gaming.

The Heart of the Effort: Community and Preservation

The technical proof-of-concept ignited a groundswell of sustained passion. The Anthem community, which had refused to fade away, mobilized. The r/AnthemTheGame subreddit is a prime example. After the cessation of development, the subreddit was initially slated for archiving—a formal retirement. Fan demand was so strong that the moderators kept it active. It remains a living forum for discussion, nostalgia, and now, a hub for the revival project.

On this and other forums, a grassroots support network is forming. Fans with backgrounds in coding, networking, and data mining are offering their expertise to assist And799 and others. This frames the entire endeavor in its truest light: it is an act of digital game preservation. In an age where access to a game can be revoked overnight by a server shutdown, fans are taking it upon themselves to save a piece of gaming history from total oblivion. They are not just trying to "fix" Anthem; they are fighting to ensure it remains an experience that can be accessed, studied, and appreciated, not just remembered.

Blueprints and Roadblocks: The Feasibility Fight

Despite this groundswell of support, the path to a revived Bastion is fraught with monumental obstacles. Is there a technical foundation for hope? Possibly. Mark Darrah, former executive producer on Anthem, has previously commented that the game had local server code that existed until shortly before launch. This suggests the underlying architecture for a less centralized system might be partially reconstructable, giving reverse-engineering efforts a crucial blueprint.

However, the road to a playable Bastion remains immensely challenging. The first is sheer technical complexity. Rebuilding the networking, progression systems, and live-service infrastructure of a AAA game from the outside is a Herculean task requiring deep, specialized expertise. The second, and more ominous, threat is legal. Electronic Arts and BioWare hold the intellectual property rights. While they may currently turn a blind eye to a proof-of-concept, a functional, public-facing private server network could easily attract a cease-and-desist order, a common fate for such projects that gain too much visibility.

Given these hurdles, analysts and observers maintain a realistic outlook. A full-scale, polished revival of the commercially unsuccessful Anthem is highly improbable. The more likely—and still significant—outcome is that this project could eventually create a limited, functional haven. It would be a digital preserve for the most dedicated Freelancers, allowing them to fly through a restored, if incomplete, version of the world they loved.

The fight to save Anthem exists in a delicate space between passionate fandom and corporate reality. It is a testament to the powerful connection players can forge with a digital world, even an imperfect one. Whether this project ever results in a fully flyable private server is almost secondary to the statement it makes. It serves as a compelling case study in the ongoing struggle for preservation in the live-service era, forcing the industry and its audience to confront a critical question: as more games become services, what responsibility do publishers and communities share in preserving them after their commercial life has ended?

Tags: Anthem, Game Preservation, Private Servers, Electronic Arts, BioWare