The day has come – Anthem is being shut down for good today, less than seven years since its launch, and fans have been saying goodbye forever to the BioWare looter shooter.
While Anthem is far from phenomenal – with a Metacritic score of 59 marking it as decidedly average – it's never fun to see the plug get pulled on a game, especially an online-only title that's not being given any kind of offline mode to keep it playable in some form going forward. Over on social media, players have been sharing their goodbyes, with many taking the game for one final spin before its demise.
"Goodbye Anthem. You had so much potential, such a waste…" reads one post. "As one of the most notorious 'Destiny killers,' its shutdown is a good reminder that keeping a looter shooter alive and well for years is a nearly impossible task."
'Potential' is a term that's coming up a lot in these farewell posts. "Last night I logged into Anthem for the last time. Toured the map one last time, did some missions," another begins. "Had some fun. People can feel how they want, but the potential this game had was undeniable. The flying was spectacular."
"A game that could have been great," reads another. "The feel of moving around, flying and shooting? Top notch. Better than any official Iron Man game. I want sci-fi super-suits to feel like this everywhere. But the mission design was a mess. Levels were designed like they were for a regular ground-based FPS."
"I'll miss the amazing world of Anthem," a fan laments. "Did a goodbye round of fort Tarsis and got in my favorite Storm Javelin to do some missions and free roaming. A bitter sweet goodbye."
Looking around online, it seems that at the time of writing Anthem is still kicking despite it being at death's door. Neither EA nor BioWare ever confirmed what time the servers will be shut down, so it's not clear exactly how much time we have left. Make the most of it while you can, anyway.
EA hits like Battlefield 4 and The Sims 4 were given time to bounce back from rough launches because they were "too big to fail," whereas with BioWare's Anthem, it wasn't "a given that it was going to be that big."
