EA to combine and rebrand EA Access and Origin Access subscription services

When a game company ends up with multiple game subscription services under its umbrella, it would be a good idea to start streamlining. Electronic Arts certainly had that in mind with their recent announcement. They intend to integrate their Origin Access and EA Access platforms under the single name of EA Play, and it will be effective this coming Tuesday. The former handled EA game subscriptions for consoles (Xbox and PlayStation) while Origin Access took care of the Windows PC corner.

Soon the two will be as one covering multiple platforms for playing Electronic Arts game titles.

New name, same membership benefits

NME reports that Electronic Arts laid out their plans for rebranding their primary game subscription services on their official news blog. As stated, the console-oriented EA Access and the PC-geared Origin Access (basic plan) will be folded into a new EA Play subscription platform that will launch on August 18. Meanwhile, the premium-tier “Origin Access Premier” service will become EA Play Pro.

Thus far the rebranding will not affect the specific benefits of the services under their original iterations.

What Electronic Arts did promise are additional perks coming within the following months, on top of the 10% membership discount to access their game library of cool action and sports titles that might be had on PC, Xbox One and the PlayStation 4.

Interestingly as IGN puts it, EA may have only repurposed the EA Play name from their annual live events to showcase their latest XBO, PS4, and other games. It is no surprise then that the game developer giant is quite simply adding one word to the event and making it “EA Play Live.” The most recent one last June showed previews and gameplay footage for longtime EA sports standards like “Madden NFL 21,” “FIFA 21” alongside the action-packed multiplayer space combat game “Star Wars Squadrons.”

‘The best way to play’

The Origin PC/mobile digital distribution platform was launched by Electronic Arts in 2011, from which Origin Access for their own game titles was developed.

Its console counterpart, EA Access, began in 2014 for the Microsoft Xbox One, with Sony only allowing the subscription service to work on the PlayStation 4 by last year. EA also has formed a partnership with Steam, and some of their titles have already become available in that service.

EA explains that their rebranding of the subscription platforms to EA Play would put gamers at the center of the experience. In their words, signing up for EA Play will be the best way to play where their games are concerned. It is certainly expected that the soon-to-be streamlined service will carry over when the PlayStation 5 and the Xbox Series X consoles finally arrive towards the end of 2020.