Anthem Private Server - Documentation

(!) STALE (partial) 2026-06-05 - The live tree is code/blaze_realudp_fork/ (Blaze) + code/AnthemPacketLogger_realudp/ (DLL); the code/blaze_test* path in the diagram below does NOT exist (verified 2026-06-05). Also the "blocked at WaitingForGhosts / ghost replication" one-line summary is FALSIFIED: the 20% wall was the cid=207 baseline (IsBaselineMessage=True, SOLVED 2026-06-04, wire-only); the current frontier is the post-Ingame menu-peer teardown. Navigation/ports/archives still useful. - see DOCUMENTATION_STATUS.md

This folder is the authoritative reference for the Anthem private-server project. Everything that would otherwise be lost as "stuff we figured out once" lives here.

How to navigate

Start with 01-overview/ if you're new. Everything else is a deep-dive on a single subsystem or problem class.

01-overview/         project status, scaling notes, morning-pickup logs
02-blaze/            Blaze server (Python 2.7): components, fixes, specs
03-api/              BIGS REST API (Node): routes, persistence, quirks
04-reverse-engineering/  Ghidra work, DLL injection, decompile analysis
05-postgres/         schema design, per-character isolation
06-reference-archives/  what's in archive/code/{BetaR2, frostbiteEngine, other_projects}
07-packet-captures/  how to read and use the pcap/apkl references

Current state - one-line summary

Main menu, character create/switch, crafting/customization, and Fort Tarsis work end-to-end. Tutorial mission loading screen is blocked at ClientState_WaitingForGhosts because we can't yet synthesize the Frostbite-level NetworkLoadLevelMessage + ghost replication the client expects. Details in 04-reverse-engineering/.

Runtime architecture in one picture

+-----------------------------------------------------------------+
|                     Anthem.exe (game client)                    |
|  +----------------+  +------------------+  +-----------------+  |
|  | BIGS HTTP      |  | Blaze TCP        |  | DirtySDK UDP    |  |
|  | localhost:47873|  | localhost:10041  |  | port 21123      |  |
|  +----------------+  +------------------+  +-----------------+  |
+------+-------------------+-------------------------+------------+
       |                   |                         |
       v                   v                         v
+--------------+    +--------------+          +--------------+
| Node.js API  |    | Python 2.7   |          | Python bridge|
| port 47873   |    | Blaze server |          | port 21123   |
| (api-*)      |    |(blaze_realudp|          | (Frostbite   |
|              |    |   _fork)     |          |              |
|              |    |              |          |  passthrough |
|              |    |              |          |  + replay)   |
+------+-------+    +------+-------+          +--------------+
       |                   |
       +--------+----------+
                v
         +-------------+
         | PostgreSQL  |
         | port 5432   |
         | schema:     |
         | anthem      |
         +-------------+

Injected DLL AnthemHook.dll (loaded via DXGI proxy) hooks multi-instance APIs, disables HMAC on ProtoTunnel, and hosts the StateScanHook memory-patching toolkit used during state-machine reverse engineering.

Ports (localhost only)

Port	Service	Listener
47873	BIGS REST API	Node.js (api-*)
42230	BIGS secondary	same Node process
42231	BIGS secondary	same Node process
10041	Blaze TCP	Python 2.7 Twisted
21123	Frostbite tunnel bridge	Python
3659	Engine / ghost replication	Python (same)
5432	PostgreSQL	pg 18 local

Environment

Dev host runs:

• Python 2.7 (old, required by BetaR2-derived Blaze code)
• Node 20+
• PostgreSQL 18
• Windows with Anthem.exe + Ghidra 12.x for reverse engineering

Reading order by topic

If you came for Blaze issues -> 02-blaze/README.md If you came for API quirks -> 03-api/README.md If you came for "why does WaitingForGhosts block" -> 04-reverse-engineering/README.md If you came to scale -> 01-overview/SCALING_NOTES.md

Reference archives (in archive/code/, not this folder)

Several upstream codebases are in archive/code/:

Archive	What it is	Useful for
BetaR2/	BF4 Blaze emulator (Python 2.7)	the origin of our Blaze server - not reference, it IS our code
blazeserver/	EA's production Blaze source (C++)	authoritative component/command definitions
frostbiteEngine/	Frostbite engine dump (partial)	Entity/EntityBus/SubLevel reference; Gameplay/ClientServer is empty
other_projects/frostbiteserver_clone/	Kyber SWBF2 Frostbite server	the connection state machine we'd emulate for Ingame flow
other_projects/Kyber-ver-beta10/	Kyber SWBF2 full project	larger context for Frostbite protocol
other_projects/anthemtool-master/	Anthem asset extraction tool (Python)	CAS/TOC/Bundle parsing

A full index is at 06-reference-archives/README.md.

Contributing to this folder

• One problem = one markdown file.
• Commit message style: docs(area): short reason.
• If you solve a production bug, write a BUG_FIX_*.md with exactly the symptom -> root cause -> fix -> grep-signature-if-it-regresses pattern that 02-blaze/CHARACTER_SWITCH_RELOAD_FIX.md uses.
• Cross-link with relative paths (not absolute), keeps the tree portable.