EA recently ditched the Origin Access name, so it’s no surprise that the brand itself is being dropped.
Just a few weeks before EA announced that EA Play will become part of Xbox Game Pass this holiday, the company renamed EA Access and Origin Access to the snappier EA Play. Origin Access Premier, the more expensive tier exclusive to its own PC store, has also been renamed to EA Play Pro.
Unifying EA’s subscription services under one banner certainly makes sense, and is aligned with the publisher’s new approach to making its products and services available to customers on as many platforms as possible – including, of course, the recent arrival on Steam.
But EA is not stopping there. The company has announced that Origin’s name will be scrapped entirely. Origin, which is what EA has been calling its PC desktop app for years after it used to be known as the EA Download Manager, will now simply be called the EA Desktop app.
The company confirmed this change in an interview with Games Industry, adding that the app is getting a visual overhaul with a focus on the social experience. The new version of the app, currently in beta, will be more streamlined and offer faster download speeds, a more organized library, a better patching experience, and more.