EA are dumping the Origin name with their new "EA desktop app"
What a catchy name!
Origin is, like, so last decade. A few weeks ago, Electronic Arts changed the name of Origin Access to EA Play. Turns out it's not just the subscription service getting a shake-up however, oh no, they're coming for the Origin software too. EA aren't getting rid of their launcher, rather it's suffering a far worse fate: it's being renamed to the EA desktop app. How catchy.
There seems to be some confusion over whether it's called the EA desktop app (that's according to GamesIndustry.biz) or the EA Desktop app (from VentureBeat), but that's not really the important bit. It isn't just a rename EA has in store, you see, they're giving their PC platform a big old overhaul to make it a bit more "streamlined".
In an interview with GI.biz, senior vice president Mike Blank said their intentions are "to create a more frictionless, fast, socially-oriented experience for our players".
Those are a bunch of buzzwords that essentially mean they're making the launcher easier to navigate, with a nicer UI for things like your game library. They're also putting in some helpful things like background desktop updates and a "better patching experience", which yeah, would be very welcome, to be honest. It's well annoying to open Origin only for it to immediately start updating games so you can't play any of them.
Origin first launched back in 2011, back when most of the posts our RPS ancestors wrote about it were questioning why EA's games were disappearing from Steam. Now, nine years later they've made a reurn, starting with Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order last year then following up with batches of games.
EA seem to be having a whale of a time with this rebranding and playing nice with other platforms at the moment. As well as rebranding Origin Access, they put the basic subscription service on Steam, and have even included it in Xbox Game Pass at no extra cost.
You can check out all the games included with EA Play over on their website. Nice games like Dragon Age: Inquisition are on there. (Which I bought on Steam literal days before that Game Pass announcement. What an absolute chump.)