EA's Origin Access Premiere launches July 30, gives you Anthem a week early

You get Battlefield 5, FIFA and Madden early too.

Sean Hollister Senior Editor / Reviews

When his parents denied him a Super NES, he got mad. When they traded a prize Sega Genesis for a 2400 baud modem, he got even. Years of Internet shareware, eBay'd possessions and video game testing jobs after that, he joined Engadget. He helped found The Verge, and later served as Gizmodo's reviews editor. When he's not madly testing laptops, apps, virtual reality experiences, and whatever new gadget will supposedly change the world, he likes to kick back with some games, a good Nerf blaster, and a bottle of Tejava.

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Sean Hollister

July 26, 2018 4:43 p.m. PT

2 min read

If you love EA's games -- and I mean love them enough to pay a monthly fee -- there's a new subscription plan you may want to try. On Monday, July 30, EA is launching its Origin Access Premier subscription service on Windows PC, which gives you early access to all of the company's latest titles.

That means you'll get to play FIFA, Madden, Battlefield V, and BioWare's hotly anticipated jetpack + exoskeleton shooter Anthem before anyone else.

Watch this: BioWare's brand new game, Anthem, gets a longer look at Xbox's E3 event

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Not crazy-early, mind you. We're talking roughly eight days before the full retail release of each of those games, so your bragging rights (and experience boosts) may give you the edge for only so long.

Here's a handy chart:

Game	Normal release date	w/ EA Origin Access Premiere
Madden NFL 19	Aug. 10	Aug. 2
FIFA 19	Sept. 28	Sept. 20
Battlefield V	Oct. 19	Oct. 11
Anthem	Feb. 22, 2019	Feb. 15, 2019

And of course, you'll have to pay for the privledge: $15, £15 or AU$20 a month, or $100, £90 or AU$130 a year. That also includes full access to EA's back catalog of over 120 games, but EA already offered that with its basic Origin Access program for $5 a month or $30 a year with trials of new games thrown in.

You're paying a heck of a lot more for full, early access to the latest games. But if you do the math, it's cheaper than if you were to buy two full-price games each year. And we wouldn't be surprised if EA eventually added its new cloud gaming service to the equation to let you play those games without downloading them to a PC -- though it hasn't confirmed that yet.

The news of the July 30 launch date comes from EA's quarterly earnings call remarks -- as spotted earlier by Variety.

Here's everything EA announced at E3 2018.