BioWare Responds to Anthem's PS4 Issues, Promises Fix

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Anthem is causing some players' PS4s to automatically shutdown, though one player may have found a fix.

Update (March 7) - Bioware’s head of live service Chad Robertson posted on Twitter that the company will be publishing an update next week to address the major causes of these problems. He adds that neither Bioware nor EA have come across a ‘bricked’ PS4 caused by the game, which is at least a small relief to concerned Anthem PS4 players.

It turns out that the ho-hum reception for EA's Anthem was just the start of the highly anticipated online shooter's problems. According to multiple players, the game is shutting down PS4 consoles on its own -- and in some cases, completely bricking them.

Credit: EA

(Image credit: EA)

News of the mysterious, severe bug first popped up early this week via Kotaku, citing multiple Reddit and forum users who noted that the game would knock them back to the main menu or their PS4 dashboard during a crash, and in some cases would just power down their PS4 completely during matchmaking.

Even worse, Reddit user TheMadTitanGuantlet claimed that the game completely bricked their PS4. This player notes that their console is "completely bricked to the point of not turning on because of Anthem," with multiple users in the comments claiming that the game would cause their PS4 to hard-shutdown with various error messages.

Fortunately, one player has seem to have gotten to the bottom of the issue, and may have found a fix.

How to fix your PS4

"What appears to be occurring, and I hope those with more IT experience than I do can add further to this, is Anthem is corrupting the PS4's file management system. THIS DOES NOT AND SHOULD NOT MEAN YOUR CONSOLE IS BRICKED." wrote Reddit user katcher12 in a long post detailing a potential workaround.

According to katcher12, those getting an error message can still access their console's data, and can do so by booting their console into Safe Mode by "holding the power button on the console until you hear two beeps." Once you've launched your PS4 in Safe Mode, you should be able to select the "Rebuild Database" option, which should solve the problem. Katcher12 also notes to not select the "Initialize" option, as this will completely wipe your HDD or SSD.

EA addressed the issue in a recent tweet, stating that "We’re aware of a crashing issue some of you have been reporting for [Anthem]" and encouraging players to log their issues in this forum thread.

The Anthem bricking issue seems to be mainly affecting PS4 players, though Forbes' Paul Tassi noted that a similar crash also happened to him on an Xbox One X. If you're having the issue on your PS4, hopefully the above fix helps. And if you've yet to pick up Anthem on any platform, you may want to wait until EA or Sony can come up with an official solution.

Michael Andronico
Michael Andronico

Mike Andronico is Senior Writer at CNNUnderscored. He was formerly Managing Editor at Tom's Guide, where he wrote extensively on gaming, as well as running the show on the news front. When not at work, you can usually catch him playing Street Fighter, devouring Twitch streams and trying to convince people that Hawkeye is the best Avenger.