Electronic Arts (EA) famously bailed on Valve’s popular Steam platform years ago in favor of its own Origin digital storefront. At the time, EA had some of the most popular gaming franchises like Call of Duty and Mass Effect to lure people over to Origin. Today, EA has given up on keeping its walled garden exclusive and will begin launching games on Steam once again. It starts next month with Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order.
EA has started promoting pre-orders for Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order, but it’s directing gamers to Steam. That’s quite a change after funneling customers to Origin for the better part of a decade. This is the first major Star Wars release for EA since Battlefront II, which attracted widespread criticism due to its use of loot boxes. Fallen Order is a single-player game, so there are fewer opportunities for EA to nickel and dime players. Although, there are still pre-order bonuses and a “deluxe” edition of the game.
Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order will run you $60 (or $70 for the deluxe edition) on Steam or EA’s Origin service. Yes, that still exists, but EA is casting its net as wide as possible now. That might have something to do with the launch of the Epic Store, which has the advantage of hosting the massively popular Fortnite. Should you decide to buy Fallen Order from Steam, you’ll still need to run Origin on your PC to authenticate the game’s DRM.
Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order is just the start of the new EA-Valve partnership. EA will continue launching games on Steam over the coming months including The Sims 4, Apex Legends, FIFA 20, and Battlefield 5. This will culminate in 2020 with the launch of EA Access on Steam. EA Access is the company’s game subscription service, which has already launched on PS4, Xbox One, and Origin (PC). This will be the first game subscription service available through Steam when it launches.
EA and Valve are still working on the technical details of linking their platforms, so this is not a full list of the games that will come to Steam. While you won’t be able to transfer games purchased on one store to the other, EA confirms that Origin and Steam will support cross-platform multiplayer for titles that are sold on both. Additional integrations may come later.
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