Confusion About EA Play Release Date

Everything I've seen states Early Access officially starts on October 11th 12am EST, so that would be 9pm in certain parts of Canada on the 10th.

@DaRosensFIFA 23 had their EA Play trail release drop on a Monday. I expect the same for NHL 23.

I wish it was still Friday’s though, at least at that point it made sense to get a month of EA play. But hey for 99 cents on a special promo to save 10 bucks on the deluxe edition (or whatever it’s called) to get the full access on that Tuesday, I’ll take it.

Though I still think it’s criminal that the artificial release dates moved to Friday and if you paid more Monday you could get it on Tuesday. The truth is that release dates used to be Tuesday for a long time and then this Friday release date stuff began to happen. The only Friday release dates used to be saved for the blockbusters. But now, Friday is the new normal and if you want it on Tuesday you have to pay out the rear end to get it on Tuesday. Which doesn’t seem right.

Sorry that rant was a bit off topic, but it needed to be said.

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@TTZ_Dipsy wrote:

Everything I've seen states Early Access officially starts on October 11th 12am EST, so that would be 9pm in certain parts of Canada on the 10th.

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That’s my point. Everything but the EA Help page says October 11th, but Madden and FIFA both came out a day earlier on EA Play, and the EA Help page does say the 10th.

This is getting annoying, it use to be you would get 10 hours worth of access that Friday before release. Now it’s only a day before the deluxe copy? That makes no sense at all. Where’s the incentive to get EA play if that’s the future of the product?! 

Think of it this way, assuming you’re like me and could give a you know what less about the pre-order bonus. Why would I buy the deluxe edition if I can go from mid day Monday to midnight on Friday with 10 hours of EA Play and pay for the standard version? Sure I would have to buy EA. Play, but for 0.99 on a special promo, it’s not going to break the bank. 

I hope EA rethinks this strategy, because as a consumer, I am rethinking mine in an ongoing basis and this year was an abnormally for me getting both EA Play and the deluxe edition of the game. But next year I’ll know better and can plan accordingly. 

Just spoke with one of the CM's -- The official launch is October 14th 12am EST and early access starts on October 11th 12am EST.

Depending on timezone, some users can play a few hours earlier/later. When it comes to EA Play/Access specifically, there have been times access to games was granted a little early (think 9am instead of 9pm), but this is usually quite rare.

I'll mark this as solved for better visibility but will update if I hear any changes.

@TTZ_DipsyI’m talking about EA Play specifically, not the 3 Days Early Access that you get from Pre-Ordering the XF Edition.

When does access to the **EA PLAY TRIAL** go live? You say that access being granted early is quite rare, but it happened 14 hours early with both Madden 23 and FIFA 23.

It shouldn’t be this hard to get an answer to a simple question.

Moderators deep diving now :-)

Well if this new release window is true, it is pretty stupid. Look at last year:

Friday 15th - standard edition release

Tuesday 12th - 3 day early access with Xfactor edition

Thursday 7th - 5 day early access for 10 hours with EA play

That makes sense and this was the way since EA play started several years ago (5 days early access).

Now you are telling me that if I paid for Xfactor edition, I can play at the midnight from 10th/11th (monday / tuesday) and with EA play, I will get 10 hours AFTER release of the game - "sometime" on tuesday the 11th? That doesnt make any sense...

It's been the case a few years where that 10 hour trial would be earlier than base launch and even X Factor (or its equivilent) early access but I haven't seen any news about that with NHL 23 and assumed they finally lined things up.

In any case I asked the CM about the 10 hour trial specifically; I'll update when I get more info