Anthem fan server project, which started "out of little more than spite for EA and Bioware," isn't making much progress

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Anthem fan server project, which started "out of little more than spite for EA and Bioware," isn't making much progress News By Ashley Bardhan published 28 January 2026

An engine can't run only on spite

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It's harder to re-animate a dead game than Frankenstein, fans of BioWare's defunct looter shooter Anthem are learning.

They were able to resuscitate the, by most accounts, middling 7-year-old game long enough to post a proof-of-concept server test on YouTube last week – but it sounds like their progress has been paused right around there. The fans behind the server project have just discussed some of the challenges they've been facing in a new interview with Ars Technica, and they ask you not to expect too much.

Project administrator Laurie, who helped establish a team of devs on The Fort's Forge Discord, tells Ars Technica that their hope to revive Anthem came "out of little more than spite for EA and Bioware around the time the shutdown got announced." Anthem publisher EA said in a 2025 post on its website that it decided to abandon the game "after careful consideration," and Anthem's servers were officially taken down on January 12, 2026.

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With the Stop Killing Games movement's energy still crackling in the air, fans weren't ready to say goodbye. Even the official Stop Killing Games Twitter account said, about Anthem, "You as the customer should have the final say as to when you're done with a game, not the company."

So Laurie recognizes that their project's server test video was invigorating, and "people are going to get their hopes up." That said, it's been difficult to reverse-engineer EA's proprietary Frostbite engine, "I don't want to be the person that's going to have to deal with the aftermath if it turns out that we can't actually get anywhere."

Dragon Age veteran defends studio's attempt to make something different with Anthem: "BioWare's always been changing."

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Contact me with news and offers from other Future brandsReceive email from us on behalf of our trusted partners or sponsorsBy submitting your information you agree to the Terms & Conditions and Privacy Policy and are aged 16 or over. CATEGORIES Xbox One PS4 PC Gaming Platforms Xbox PlayStation Ashley BardhanSenior Writer

Ashley is a Senior Writer at GamesRadar+. She's been a staff writer at Kotaku and Inverse, too, and she's written freelance pieces about horror and women in games for sites like Rolling Stone, Vulture, IGN, and Polygon. When she's not covering gaming news, she's usually working on expanding her doll collection while watching Saw movies one through 11.

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