Electronic Arts' Project Atlas Cloud Gaming Service Launches Tonight

The wait is finally over.

Electronic Arts (EA) has announced that they will be hosting an “exclusive external trial” of Project Atlas, the company's “engine+services” cloud-based platform which was announced in October of last year.

Polygon has it that EA will be spearheading a two-week test run of its streaming gaming service on September 10 at 10 p.m. PT/1 a.m. ET. Players with existing Origin accounts and those who will sign up for the test, will have a chance to play four games: Need for Speed Rivals, Titanfall 2, FIFA 19 and Unravel.

Ken Moss said via Medium that Project Atlas is EA's conscious effort to serve players with a “cloud-powered feature” so that they can “engage and enjoy anytime, anywhere and on any device.”

Moss, EA's Chief Technology Officer, was also the one who introduced Project Atlas in 2019 as a collective effort to fuse “gaming engine technology and services” alongside the many benefits of the cloud.

“As our games will continue to be the creative heart of EA, we are focused on testing and understanding their performance in cloud gaming,” Moss said.

He further explained that the trial's first and foremost motive is to gauge on the quality of service in various networks, as well as to “gather more inputs at scale to test performance.”

While the trial is focused on cloud gaming on the PC, EA will also set their goals on how cloud gaming performs on multiple devices. Furthermore, the two-week trial will serve as the backbone for EA to “improve and enhance” gaming experience.

Among others, Moss pointed that they will be testing on how cloud gaming would adjust to “real-world” conditions such as unstable bandwidth and network strength and its capability to handle “full-scale HD games” to a device a player wants to use, may it be on a Smart TV, PC, Mac or even Smartphones.

The Verge, meanwhile, pointed that EA has yet to confirm when they will be actually launching a “Project Atlas-based cloud gaming service as a product.” In addition, the company has been keeping a tight lid on “any real details” on what games would be available.

The launch of Project Atlas' trial run puts EA in front of its competitors, particularly Google's Stadia and Project xCloud by Microsoft, the outlet added.

Players who want to try Project Atlas can sign up here.