EA’s Anthem has had a less than ideal launch since its release a week ago, and the series of unfortunate events continues with a hardware-breaking bug that has affected many players. In a report by Twisted Voxel, it would appear that the bugs carried over from the flawed demo has escalated from game crashes to full on system shutdowns. Mass comments from the main Games subreddit, as well as multiple threads created in the Anthem subreddit, have generally reflected the same negative sentiments.

Though bugs that lead to software inconveniences are relatively common in unpolished games, the usual effects ranging from game crashes to memory wipes, an egregious issue that influences hardware functioning itself is a lot rarer, and much more serious. The implications for potential permanent damage for users’ consoles don’t bode well for the already struggling flagship. The problem has become so severe that many are asking for refunds on the PS4, since this is the platform that observed the biggest sample size. However, as Twisted Voxel pointed out, the success of Sony actually following through is still up in the air, as the company has a pretty strict refund policy where users are only allowed one PS Store refund, no matter the circumstance.

As of now, neither the publisher EA nor Bioware has yet to publicly reveal the underlying reasons behind these issues, but it’s safe to say they’re probably still looking into it. Meanwhile, inconsistencies continue to plague the game in terms of scope of the problem, severity of individual cases, and sample size across platforms.

Despite being EA’s flagship for the first act of 2019, Anthem has proven to be another PR trainwreck in a long line of EA-backed titles, one panned by critics and users alike. The heavy marketing done by the company did little to help the now-tarnished image of the multiplayer shooter, as the E3 darling now looks like it’s heading the way of Fallout 76 rather than EA’s recent surprise hit, Apex Legends. Bioware has rolled out quite a few updates since the concerns started popping up during pre-release and the demo periods, but in spite of all those efforts, the woes of Anthem looks to be an uphill climb for the renowned RPG studio.