Anthem VIP Demo Had Issues That Even Affected Other EA Games

The VIP demo for Anthem is now officially live, but unfortunately it hasn't been a very smooth launch. Players have already seen messages that servers are full or been stuck on the title screen with extensive loading times, while others have been kicked out of the demo entirely with Origin momentarily going down.

[Update: EA and BioWare reached out with a statement regarding some of these issues: "The main issue impacting the Anthem VIP demo on PC and PS4 has been resolved. Anyone who has had an issue on those platforms should restart the game and attempt to join again. Our team is still working on fixes for some of the issues we're seeing on Xbox One." We're still encountering a few problems on both PS4 and PC, however. Our original article continues below.]

"We're adding more server capacity to the [Anthem] demo right now. Hang tight while we work to get everyone into the game," EA Help tweeted out Friday morning. That tweet was followed with another, this time addressing the long loading times, about an hour later. "We're looking into the infinite loading issue with the [Anthem] demo. In the meantime, try relaunching the game and rejoining your mission to see if that helps you," EA Help wrote.

BioWare GM Casey Hudson has clarified that servers aren't actually full, tweeting "Turns out to not be a server capacity issue. Seems to be a different issue that didn't come up in previous scale testing." Hudson has confirmed that work is being done to address the issue.

On top of all of this, Origin has temporarily gone down for some players--including for a few of us here at GameSpot--although the connection seems to be slowly coming back. It's possible EA's servers are experiencing a larger influx of players trying to get into the VIP demo than the company originally planned for. Despite this weekend's demo being marketed as an exclusive experience for only those who pre-order Anthem or subscribe to EA or Origin Access, every person who unlocked the demo received friend codes they could use to invite three additional people to also participate.

Whatever the issue, the problem has seemingly extended to other games as well. EA has confirmed FIFA is "experiencing connectivity issues across all platforms" and we've seen examples of this on the Xbox One version of Battlefield V too. According to another EA tweet, there's widespread "login issues" across all of the company's games and services at the moment.

We also ran into an audio issue on both PS4 and PC--the former of which you can see on our stream of the demo--where all sound, both in the game and on the system's menus, was somehow lost.

Regardless, the VIP demo continues until Sunday, January 27 at 6PM PT / 9PM ET, which is January 28 at 2AM in the UK. If you do manage to get into the VIP demo, you'll unlock a cool-looking, exclusive vinyl that you can apply to your Javelins in the main game. If you can't manage to make it into this demo, there is another one scheduled for next weekend that will begin on February 1 at 9AM PT / 12PM ET / 5PM UK. This second demo is open to everyone, but playing it won't unlock anything special for the main game.

We had the chance to play Anthem prior to the VIP demo, if you're curious as to how the game actually plays.

Anthem Guides

• Javelin Progression, Loot, And Loadouts: Everything You Need To Know
• Anthem's Beginning: How The Game Plays
• Anthem's Endgame: Everything We Know So Far

Anthem releases on February 22 for Xbox One, PS4, and PC. You can play a week early on Xbox One or PC if you're an EA or Origin Access subscriber.