On January 12, EA shut down the official servers for Anthem, making Bioware’s multiplayer sci-fi adventure completely unplayable for the first time since its troubled 2019 launch. Last week, though, the Anthem community woke up to a new video showing the game at least partially loading on what appears to be a simulated background server.
The people behind that video—and the Anthem revival project that made it possible—told Ars they were optimistic about their efforts to coerce EA’s temperamental Frostbite engine into running the game without access to EA’s servers. That said, the team also wants to temper expectations that may have risen a bit too high in the wake of what is just a proof-of-concept video.
Andersson799’s early proof-of-concept video showing Anthem partially loading on emulated local servers.
“People are getting excited [about the video], and naturally people are going to get their hopes up,” project administrator Laurie told Ars. “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.”
Keep an eye on those packets
The Anthem revival effort currently centers around The Fort’s Forge, a Discord server where a handful of volunteer engineers and developers have gathered to pick apart the game and its unique architecture. Laurie said they initially set up the group “out of little more than spite for EA and Bioware around the time the shutdown got announced” back in July.
While Laurie has some experience with the community behind Gundam Evolution revival project Side 7, they knew they’d need help from people with direct experience working on EA’s Frostbite engine games. Luckily, Laurie said they were “able to catch the eyes of people who are familiar with this line of work [without] searching too much.”
One of those people was Ness199X, an experienced Frostbite tinkerer who told Ars he “never really played much Anthem” before the game’s shutdown was announced. When a friend pointed out the impending death of the title, though, Ness said he was motivated to preserve the game for posterity.