Former Anthem lead says development code for local hosting could be recovered

Pcgamer reports former BioWare executive producer and Anthem project lead Mark Darrah said the game's development included code that would let players' machines host sessions, and that the code "is there to be salvaged and recovered."

Darrah noted Anthem launched as a client-server live service that required everyone to connect to central servers for game logic, but said local-server code existed in a dev environment "right up until a few months before launch" and that he does not know whether those builds still work. He outlined an alternate future involving a singleplayer conversion with AI companions and visual upgrades, an approach he estimates would cost a further $10 million that EA "would almost definitely not spend," and said his view is informed by his "singleplayer biases."

The story says a revival would depend on either third-party ingenuity or EA providing the development code, and suggests EA handing over the code is unlikely, leaving enthusiast-led work as the more plausible route. Player-run replacements exist for other games—Northstar for Titanfall 2 and Kyber for Battlefront 2—but a private-server resurrection for Anthem would require substantial traffic analysis and engineering, even if some fans may attempt it.

Key Topics

Culture, Anthem, Mark Darrah, Bioware, Electronic Arts, Private Servers