On the heels of a steamy teaser, today EA officially announced a new partnership with Valve that will bring select EA games and the EA Access library to Steam. The migration will start this fall with Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order, which is now available for pre-order on Steam. EA Access itself will become available in spring 2020.
"In the coming months, players on Steam will also be able to play other major titles like The Sims 4 and Unravel Two," EA said in a statement. "Multiplayer games - like Apex Legends, FIFA 20, and Battlefield 5 - will become available next year, and players on both Origin and Steam will have the ability to play together."
Valve and EA grew apart when EA launched its Origin platform and storefront in June 2011. You could always get some EA-published titles on Steam, but with very few exceptions, only the ones published before Origin's release. Thanks to the publisher's new partnership, Steam users will get to catch up on over eight years of EA's catalog.
It's worth noting that Origin will still be in the picture even after EA's games come to Steam. As the Steam page for Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order specifies, "EA on-line activation and Origin client software installation and background use" will be required to play it. It also notes that it "requires [a] 3rd-party account: EA account (supports linking to Steam account)." In other words, just like how Ubisoft's Uplay is required for some games, you'll need to create and link an Origin account to play EA games on Steam. It's unclear if this will be the case for all EA games, but I’d assume so.
Based on the wording of the announcement, select EA games will be available on Steam on a standalone basis, but Steam users will also have the option of purchasing an EA Access subscription - presumably for the standard rate of $4.99 a month or $29.99 a year - and accessing those games through their Steam library as well. Notably, EA Access also gives subscribers a discount on EA games.
You can check out the full list of EA Access games here.
