Anthem has become a tool for EA to promote its subscription services

Electronic Arts has published a schedule of access to Anthem, a BioWare game service. Judging by it, EA expects to accustom users to subscribe to its services.

• Already today, on February 1, from 20:00 Moscow time, the open demo starts. It will last until February 3. Absolutely all players can download it.
• On February 15, the full version of the game will be released in early access. It will be available only to Origin Access Premier members.
• On the same day, February 15, subscribers of Origin Access Basic and EA Access will be given 10 hours to play the trial version of Anthem.
• The official release of the game will take place on February 22.

Obviously, against the backdrop of the failure of Battlefield V, falling revenue from sports games and other unfavorable moments, the publisher is testing a new scheme to retain users. With the help of the new BioWare project, EA, apparently, is trying to secure an audience for itself, including through subscription services, and not only through premium distribution.

However, the Anthem access schedule was ridiculed online. Some users found it too confusing. They were also outraged that the owners of the most expensive edition of Anthem — Legion of Dawn — and PS4 users were denied early access.

The publisher and developer were immediately reminded of the problematic launch of the Anthem VIP demo on January 25. The start of the demo led to serious problems on EA servers. Plus, the players faced a lot of technical errors.

Also on the topic:

• The launch of the Anthem VIP demo turned into problems for EA systems, despite the harvested server capacitiesKotaku: Anthem will determine the fate of BioWare