Following the original advice to remove the cache worked perfectly 🙂 Just be sure to toggle to "view" in the explorer window at the upper left corner, then check the "Hidden Items" box to view the proper folders. Also be sure to go to task manager and end any and ALL EA/Origin tasks. I thought I exited out from everything but found that the Origin "Web Client" was still running when I scrolled all the way down. After I closed that I was able to delete the files as needed.
My original issue was that I was unable to download the update- I tried to restart my laptop, then I was unable to even play it and the orange "play" bar became greyed out- not going to lie- I was dreading the idea of having to reinstall everything (and even more annoyed at the possibility of the origin client being so fragile). But it wasn't needed after all. Thanks so much for everyone's helpful tip.
I wish EA gave a notice for that!! I mean it seems like it's happened pretty frequently!
