Overview
- EA switched off Anthem’s official servers this week, leaving the 2019 online-only game unplayable nearly seven years after release.
- In a nearly four-hour video, former executive producer Mark Darrah recounts the game’s troubled development and notes its underperformance with critics and sales.
- Darrah proposes a path to restore playability by porting to current consoles at 60fps, enabling locally hosted servers he says are in the code, and adding AI companions for single-player, estimating about $10 million.
- He argues the canceled Anthem Next overhaul "could have" produced a No Man’s Sky–style turnaround before EA ended the effort in 2021.
- Darrah highlights game-preservation concerns, pointing to the Stop Killing Games campaign and recent UK parliamentary debate on keeping deactivated titles playable.