Decoding EA Play: Value for Your Dollar

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What Is EA Play?
What Popular Games Are Included in EA Play?
Is EA Play Worth the Price?

Key Takeaways

EA Play offers access to dozens of EA titles, Game Trials, and up to 10% discount on games and content for $4.99 per month.
EA Play Pro gives more gaming titles for $14.99 monthly, including early access to new games.
Xbox Game Pass offers better value with more titles, making EA Play less appealing.

Gaming subscriptions have been all the rage in recent years, with many game publishers offering plans of their own. EA isn’t lagging behind this trend with its EA Play subscription.

Here’s what you should know about EA Play and whether it’s worth the money.

What Is EA Play?

EA Play offers members access to many EA titles for a monthly subscription. You also get Game Trials, which lets you try new EA titles for up to 10 hours without buying them. If you decide to purchase a game after trying it, you get to keep your progress, so you don’t have to start all over again.

EA Play members also get a 10% discount on EA digital content, including expansions, passes, packs, and DLCs. The subscription also offers in-game challenges and rewards, letting you get more out of your games and giving you a more competitive experience.

EA Play comes in two tiers. The base EA Play, which costs $4.99 a month or $29.99 a year, lets you access many popular EA titles and gives you the Game Trials, Member Rewards, and 10% discount benefits.

But if you’re a hardcore EA fan, you could select the EA Play Pro subscription. This tier costs $14.99 monthly or $99.99 annually but gives you access to even more EA titles. You can also play premium editions of some newly-released games even before their official release date.

What Popular Games Are Included in EA Play?

One of the reasons you choose a subscription is to get access to your favorite game titles. At the time of writing, EA Play gives you access to 89 titles, while EA Play Pro gives you access to 61 additional titles for a total of 150 games.

Some of the most popular titles you can get with a basic EA Play subscription include the Battlefield series, from Battlefield 3 to Battlefield 2042, seven Need for Speed titles, including the three latest releases (Payback, Heat, and Unbound), and a few classics like Burnout Paradise Remastered, the Command & Conquer collection, and SimCity 3000 Unlimited.

You also get several trilogies, including Crysis, Dead Space, and Mass Effect. Here’s a complete list of all EA Play games on the EA website.

The more expensive EA Play Pro subscription includes everything in the EA Play subscription plus more niche games, like several titles from EA Sports and many Star Wars franchise titles.

You also get a few top-billed indie games like FTL: Faster Than Light, Frostpunk, and They Are Billions. If you want to see all the games included in this subscription, you can check out this list of all EA Play Pro games on PC .

Is EA Play Worth the Price?

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The EA Play subscription gives you access to many loved titles in the EA library, whether you’re using a PC, a PlayStation 5, or an Xbox Series X|S console. But is the cost worth it?

While the EA Play subscription is available on PC, PlayStation, and Xbox, not all EA games will work on gaming consoles. You should check if your favorite title is available on your preferred platform before committing to a subscription to avoid disappointments.

Furthermore, although you can get EA Play for all three platforms, your membership is tied to the platform you joined on. So, if you sign up for EA Play on the Playstation 5 , you can’t use your subscription on your Steam account. This means that you must purchase a separate subscription for these devices.

EA Play’s biggest competitor is Xbox Game Pass for PC and Xbox Game Pass Ultimate . The former costs $9.99 monthly, while the latter will set you back by $16.99 monthly.

While the Xbox Game Pass for PC is twice the price of EA Play’s base offering, it does have one big ace up its sleeve—it includes an EA Play subscription, meaning you get everything it offers plus more. Xbox Game Pass Ultimate also gives you access to everything in Game Pass for PC, plus the ability to stream your games from the cloud and other features.

The Xbox Game Pass Ultimate subscription will allow you to use your subscription on both PC and Xbox. So, besides including the basic EA Play subscription and several other features, you can also use it across console and PC, giving you a whole lot more value than EA Play as a standalone subscription.

Image Credit: Xbox

If you’re a fan of specific game titles in the EA library, it’s better to purchase these titles directly on Steam so that you’ll always have ownership of these games. But if you’re a PC gaming fan, Xbox Game Pass gives you more value, as you get many more titles and you are not limited to EA titles only.

In fact, Xbox Game Pass for PC has 453 titles at the time of writing, including titles from EA, Ubisoft, Xbox Game Studios, and more. For players with an Xbox Series X and a gaming PC, the Xbox Game Pass Ultimate is the best subscription, especially as it’s just $2 more than EA Play Pro, but you get so much more.

EA Play isn’t exactly the best value gaming subscription out there, especially if you’re a PC gamer. Unless you’re a superfan of Electronic Arts, you’re better off going for Xbox Game Pass for PC or just buying your favorite titles outright from Steam or EA.

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Decoding EA Play: Value for Your Dollar