EA's Origin Is On The Way Out, But Its Replacement Sounds A Whole Lot Better

Last month, EA announced a fairly major change to its subscription services, revealing that it would unify them under the name of EA Play. The company's subscription service was previously known as EA Access on console and Origin Access on PC, with a third, more expensive subscription known as Origin Access Premier, so some kind of unification was certainly in order. With that announcement, the basic subscription was rebranded to EA Play across all platforms, while the premium subscription became EA Play Pro.

It turns out that's not the only rebranding EA is planning to do. The company will also be dropping the Origin branding from its PC launcher. In that way, it's the end of an era, as EA's desktop launcher has been known as Origin for nearly a decade.

EA confirmed its plans in an interview with GamesIndustry today, announcing that it will rebrand Origin to simply be the "EA Desktop" app. It's a fairly unexciting new name, but with the death of the Origin Access branding and this shift toward putting the EA name front and center in more ways, it isn't entirely surprising.

Mike Blank, EA senior vice president of strategic growth, told GamesIndustry that the rebrand is meant "to create a more frictionless, fast, socially-oriented experience for our players, where it becomes the best place for them to connect with the people they want to play with in the games they want to play." Blank goes on to say that the name of Origin won't be the only thing that's changing with this rebrand, as he also promises various UI updates, a better patching experience, and streamlined navigation. We'll also see cross-play in the app at some point in the future.

EA is actually hosting a beta for the EA Desktop app, and all Origin players can register to be considered. If you use Origin on PC and want to test out the EA Desktop app, you can head over to EA's website and register your interest.