Anthem private server experimentation's underway, as the shooter's subreddit mods rethink retirement plans

Last week, EA followed through on plans outlined in 2025 by shutting down the servers of Bioware’s Anthem. Pretty much since the shooter’s fate was set in stone, there’s been the natural chatter about whether it could potentially be kept online or revived down the road in some fashion. At this early stage, there’s been no huge re-emergence, but that doesn’t mean folks aren’t experimenting to see what such a thing might involve.

As spotted by Kotaku, a YouTuber going by And799 has posted a video of them getting the game up and running with two accounts serving as players in the same session. Seems like the majority of the player data [is] handled through Bioware’s server instead of blaze and it is required for the game to be able to load offline,” they observed in the video’s description.

Now, before you get too excited, they also made sure to stress that “this is just a POC from my research and experiment and does NOT represent the current progress of the private server/revival project that is currently in progress.” Adding to that, the video being posted on the Anthem subreddit’s attracted a comment from a user who claims to be working with And799. “This is still a really hacky thing so I want to ask people to manage their expectations just a bit,” this user added. “A lot of stuff clearly doesn’t work as ‘intended’, and definitely needs at minimum, more polish.”

That certainly mashes with the walls of code and text open in various windows over the course of the five-minute demo clip. So, any revival of Anthem still looks to be a ways off at current, with a project dubbed Cenotaph whose creators previously posted about taking on that task having not updated their Discord server to say anything beyond ‘this is an idea we’d like to get the ball rolling on at some point’ at this point.

One thing I have noticed happening as I’ve taken a look around the Anthemsphere is that today, January 21st, the moderation team of r/anthemthegame have posted plans to archive the 33,000 user subreddit by making it read-only as of January 31st. “After that date, no new posts or comments can be made, but the subreddit and everything shared here will remain visible as an archive,” they wrote. “We wanted to give everyone a clear heads-up ahead of time, in case you want to wrap up ongoing discussions, share a final farewell or reflection, or revisit and comment on old threads, screenshots, stories and memories. You still have about 9–10 days to do so.”

There were quickly a couple of comments asking if it’d be possible to hold out a bit longer before taking this step, just in case efforts like And799’s do yield progress towards a private server-based revival down the line. The subreddit’s team have just responded to those by switching up their plans, which they say are “the result of long-term burnout and the reality that there has effectively been no active full mod team for years”.

“It’s very clear from the responses here that many of you still want this subreddit to remain a place for discussion, sharing projects, memories and potential future developments…and knowing that, it’s not something that’s going to be ignored,” a fresh sticked comment from one of the moderators reads. “Because of that, we’re pausing and rethinking the approach. If this community is going to continue, it needs solid volunteers who are genuinely willing to take on ongoing moderation responsibilities so the sub can be maintained at a level it deserves.” They’re encouraging folks who might fit that bill to reach out to them via modmail.

While it likely goes beyond what’s achievable by a fan-run private server project without significant backing, long-time Bioware key cog Mark Darrah recently shared his own vision for keeping Anthem going as an RPG folks could try single-player, in addition to playing via local servers.