Stop Killing Games says Anthem's scrapped plans for local servers is what the initiative is all about: "You as the customer should have the final say as to when you're done with a game"

Anthem.

Anthem, BioWare's maligned loot shooter, is officially dead. This week's server shutdown rendered the always-online game completely unplayable even to those who already own it – a practice the Stop Killing Games initiative has been fighting for close to two years now. According to producer Mark Darrah, the seeds of the future Stop Killing Games envisions were in Anthem until shortly before launch.

In October 2025, Darrah published a post-mortem video running down Anthem's post-launch fortunes. Near the end, he describes his vision for Anthem Next – an ultimately abandoned plan he believed could've given the game a No Man's Sky-style turnaround. Crucially, this plan would've included locally hosted servers – something that already partially existed during development