Dragon Age: Inquisition Outlasted Anthem By Nearly a Decade, and That Says Everything About Gaming Right Now

Key Takeaways

• Dragon Age: Inquisition PS3 servers will shut down on April 28th after 12 years of operation
• The game's online features outlasted BioWare's own Anthem by nearly a decade
• Concord lasted two weeks, Highguard barely two months, but Inquisition kept going since 2014
• EA hasn't clarified if layoffs affected this decision or what happens to Dragon Age Keep

Here's something wild to think about. A game that came out when people were still making jokes about the Ice Bucket Challenge is only now shutting down its online servers. Meanwhile, games that launched last year are already digital ghosts.

Dragon Age: Inquisition hit shelves in November 2014. The third entry in BioWare's beloved fantasy RPG series, it was primarily a single-player experience. But it also packed in a cooperative multiplayer mode that let you team up with friends for dungeon crawls. Nothing revolutionary. Just a fun side feature.

And that side feature? It ran continuously for twelve years.

The Live-Service Graveyard Keeps Getting Bigger

Look, I'm not here to dance on Anthem's grave. Okay, maybe a little bit. BioWare's ambitious 2019 live-service shooter was supposed to compete with Destiny. It was going to pull players away from No Man's Sky. It had jetpacks and cool Iron Man suits and all the things executives thought would print money forever.

It lasted two years before EA killed support. The servers went dark earlier this year. So if you're keeping score at home, a tacked-on multiplayer mode in a single-player RPG outlasted BioWare's dedicated multiplayer game by roughly eight years.

But Anthem isn't even the most embarrassing comparison. Concord, Sony's hero shooter, became the biggest bomb in PlayStation history when it shut down after just two weeks. Two weeks! That's not even enough time to unlock all the characters. Highguard, another recent casualty, managed about two months before getting the axe.

What This Actually Tells Us About The Industry

The kicker? Dragon Age: Inquisition wasn't trying to be a live-service game. It was a 100-hour RPG about saving the world from demons and making questionable romantic decisions with fictional elves. The multiplayer was basically a bonus feature. A nice-to-have.

And yet here we are, twelve years later, finally saying goodbye. That longevity wasn't planned. It wasn't the result of constant content updates or battle passes or seasonal events. BioWare just... left the servers running. Players kept showing up.

“Now that gaming is defined by not which games are good but which games survive, it's nostalgic to see off Inquisition on more graceful terms.”

— Kotaku's coverage of the shutdown

This is honestly kind of damning for the entire live-service model. Publishers keep chasing the Fortnite dragon, pumping hundreds of millions into games designed from the ground up to extract maximum engagement and revenue. Most of them crash and burn within a year. Some don't even make it a month.

EA Stays Quiet On The Details

So what's actually happening when April 28th rolls around? EA confirmed the PS3 servers are going offline, which means the cooperative multiplayer mode becomes inaccessible. The single-player campaign, which is the vast majority of the game, should remain fully playable.

But there are unanswered questions. EA hasn't said whether the recent layoffs at BioWare influenced this decision. They also haven't clarified what happens to Dragon Age Keep, the community portal that lets players track their world state and decisions across the series. That's a bigger deal for hardcore fans who've been maintaining their canon across multiple games.

• PS3 multiplayer servers shutting down April 28th, 2026
• Single-player campaign remains fully functional
• No word on Dragon Age Keep community portal status
• EA hasn't connected decision to BioWare layoffs

PSN Turns 20 While Everything Falls Apart

Here's some perspective that makes this even stranger. PlayStation Network has been running for 20 years now. Two decades of online gaming on Sony's platform. Dragon Age: Inquisition's servers covered more than half of that entire lifespan.

The gaming industry has changed unrecognizably since 2014. We've gone through multiple console generations. Streaming services launched and some already died. The metaverse became a punchline. AI art became a controversy. And through all of it, you could technically still log in and play some Dragon Age multiplayer with your friends.

That's not because Inquisition was some revolutionary online experience. It's because nobody at EA bothered to turn it off. The cost of maintaining those servers was presumably low enough that it just kept chugging along. No executive made a PowerPoint about the engagement metrics. No one demanded a return on investment analysis.

The Nostalgia Is Real

I'll be honest with you. I never played much of Inquisition's multiplayer. Like most people, I was too busy romancing Dorian and arguing with Solas about elven history to bother with the co-op stuff. But there's something weirdly emotional about watching it finally end.

Maybe it's because everything feels so disposable now. Games launch broken, get abandoned, and disappear before you can even decide if they're worth playing. The idea of a server quietly running for twelve years, just in case someone wanted to use it, feels almost quaint.

Or maybe it's because this represents a different era of BioWare. The studio that gave us Mass Effect, Knights of the Old Republic, and yes, Dragon Age, keeps getting smaller. The layoffs keep coming. Each server shutdown feels like another piece of that legacy going dark.

So here's to Dragon Age: Inquisition. A game that won Game of the Year in 2014, sold millions of copies, and accidentally became a symbol of everything wrong with modern gaming's obsession with short-term profits over long-term value.

The servers go dark on April 28th. Twelve years isn't forever. But in today's gaming landscape? It might as well be eternity.

Frequently Asked Questions

Can I still play Dragon Age: Inquisition after the servers shut down?

Yes, the single-player campaign will work perfectly fine. Only the cooperative multiplayer mode requires the servers.

Does this affect Dragon Age: Inquisition on other platforms?

EA specifically mentioned PS3 servers. The status of other platform servers hasn't been clarified.

What about my Dragon Age Keep data?

EA hasn't addressed what happens to the Dragon Age Keep community portal where players track their world state and decisions.

Why did EA wait 12 years to shut down the servers?

No official reason given. The low maintenance cost of older servers likely made it not worth actively shutting down until now.

Sources & Credits

Originally reported by Kotaku — Zack Kotzer