The Unauthorized Anthem Revival Has Begun as Fans Hit the Restart Button
Anthem has officially flatlined, but a stubborn group of fans is refusing to pronounce time of death. The much-maligned live-service game from BioWare saw its servers officially shut down by EA on January 12, 2026, severing all access to the online-only world. Following a delisting from stores last summer, the game was essentially entombed. Does this mean the story of Anthem is conclusively over?
A Post-Mortem Project with Pre-Mortem Hype
Not if a determined developer named And799 has anything to say about it, as they have showcased a startling proof-of-concept for a private server. Their work, while extremely preliminary, demonstrates that reviving this fallen title might just be possible. In a recent video, And799 managed to get a basic version of the game running with two players sharing a lobby, a crucial first step.
The developer was quick to temper expectations, stressing this is a rough proof-of-concept and not the current state of a larger, ongoing revival project. Key features like online profiles remain missing, and the infrastructure is, in their words, really hacky. So, can this ragtag effort actually resurrect the full experience of Anthem?
BioWare Bailed, But These Fans Won’t Flail
The path is fraught with technical hurdles, as much critical player data was handled through BioWare’s proprietary servers, not the more easily replicated backend systems. This creates a monumental reverse-engineering challenge for the community. Interestingly, the response to this endeavor has been immediately supportive, with many in the video’s comments offering their own expertise to assist.
One impressed viewer noted it hadn’t even been a week since the shutdown, calling the progress outstanding. This collective spirit echoes the very cooperation the game itself was designed to foster, albeit now directed at saving it. The project’s organizers, like Redditor Next-Atmosphere9202, continue to preach patience, warning that a lot of stuff clearly doesn’t work as intended.
The “Hold My Beer” of Video Game Necromancy
Their goal is not a rushed product but a stable, polished revival, should it even be possible to fully achieve. This passion is particularly poignant given the history of Anthem itself. The launch of Anthem in 2019 was, to put it gently, a bit of a stumble out of the gate, failing spectacularly to hit EA’s marks and never finding its footing.
Consequently, BioWare pulled the plug on active development back in 2021 to point its talented writers at other, hopefully less glitchy, galaxies, leaving Anthem to collect cosmic dust until the servers went dark. Now, the entire saga presents a real head-scratcher. Honestly, who in their right mind would spend precious hours trying to revive a game with a reputation this tarnished?
Apparently, the answer lies in a core idea so cool it survived the crash landing: the pure, unadulterated joy of strapping into a powerful exosuit and rocketing through the sky. Therefore, this fan-led revival isn’t really about salvaging the messy game everyone actually played; it’s a passionate attempt to finally build the brilliant game everyone was promised in the trailers.
An Anthem for the Hopeful and Heartbroken
The official servers for Anthem have been powered down for good, yet a stubborn little fan project is currently trying to jump-start its heart. This community effort now stares down the same kind of gnarly technical barriers that helped doom the original game, making the whole endeavor a real uphill battle. That initial proof-of-concept video is a hopeful glimmer, sure, but let’s be honest—it’s a flickering candle in a very large, dark cave. Does anyone really think a bunch of volunteers can fully reassemble a game that a major studio couldn’t fix?
Keeping expectations firmly in check is absolutely vital because achieving a polished and complete version of Anthem would be a miracle of modern fan engineering. This whole attempt is really a tribute to the thrilling idea of the exosuit that got everyone excited about Anthem in the first place. In the end, this quirky mission stands as a weird and wonderful tribute to how much gamers can love a thing, even when that thing was a mess.
