Anthem Died in 2 Years. Inquisition's PS3 Lasted 11.

Eleven years. That's how long Dragon Age: Inquisition's multiplayer kept its lights on for PS3 players, surviving two console generations and the complete collapse of BioWare's live-service ambitions in the process. EA's service update page confirms the PS3 servers will go dark on April 28. Servers on PS4, PC, and Xbox are unaffected for now.

The timing is quietly brutal. Anthem, BioWare's actual live-service game, the one with the budget, the marketing, the Destiny comparisons, and the years of hype, launched in 2019 and had its servers shut down earlier this year. Two years of support. Inquisition's co-op mode, a side feature bolted onto a single-player RPG, lasted nearly six times as long on hardware that was already a generation old at launch.

Multiplayer was never the point of Inquisition. BioWare added it off the back of Mass Effect 3's surprisingly popular co-op, giving players a PvE mode using various races and classes to fight enemies from the campaign. It never dominated the conversation the way the main game did, and it didn't return for Dragon Age: The Veilguard, which launched fully single-player after spending years in development as a live-service title. Anthem's failure directly shaped that decision.

The Dragon Age Keep community portal, which lets players carry world-state decisions between games, still exists, though EA hasn't said whether the server shutdown affects it or whether recent studio layoffs played any role in the decision.

BioWare is now a much smaller studio focused on Mass Effect 5, with no multiplayer component announced.