Together Again: EA Games Returns To Steam Plus Access Subscription Soon

Steam and Electronic Arts (EA) games are rekindling their friendship with what seems to be a promising tie-up. Starting next month, players will once again be able to purchase EA games through Steam's portal, as well the publisher's subscription-based gaming service, Access.

This is the first time eight years that the gaming community saw the names of EA and Steam on the same page. As reported by The Verge, EA broke its ties with Valve's digital distributor service platform shortly after the release of Crysis 2 back in 2011.

For the most part, EA blamed the breakup on Steam when it imposed a “set of business terms” for developers. Unfortunately, Crytek, Crysis 2's developer had an agreement with another download service and in the process, violated what Steam had laid out in its new rules.

As a result, Crysis 2 was dissolved from Steam. Nick Mertes wrote in an article that the decision to pull out the game didn't came from EA, nor was it the “result of any action” by the American video game company.

Despite this, Crysis 2 continued to be available on other download services including Amazon and GameStop. Ironically, EA also launched Origin as Steam's direct competitor. It was formerly EA Store's Download Manager and was also given a new logo, a paint job and “social network-enabled client.”

Fast forward to 2019, all is well with EA and Steam. Their new and budding relationship will start with Respawn's Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order. Pre-orders are already underway and it is set to be included in the official Steam lineup on November 15^th.

“We want to be where the gamers are,” said Mike Blank, EA's senior vice president. At the same time, the executive affirmed one notion that they are, at the core, “game makers” and that they wanted to connect as many people to great games “as frictionless as possible.”

Engadget pointed that the partnership was teased by EA last week when they tweeted a mug with steam coming out. As cliché as it may be, both outfits are off to a good start. Alongside Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order, The Sims 4, Unravel 2, Apex Legends 2, FIFA 20 and Battlefield V will grace Steam in the coming months.

As for EA Access, it'll bring around 80 games on the Xbox One and about half of that on the PlayStation 4. The Verge added that subscription will be the same on both consoles: $4.99 per month or $29.99 for the whole year.

“Which games will be available on Steam's EA Access is still being figured out between now and whenever the service launches next year,” the website said.