EA is testing a new desktop client that will, once out of beta, replace its current Origin app and take another step toward retiring the Origin branding in full.
That new client, called simply EA Desktop, boasts faster downloads and updates and, as EA tells VentureBeat, is its idea of what a next-generation platform looks like on PC.
Currently, EA Desktop is only in closed beta but the company is letting its users sign up to trial the app. Any games or progress currently tied to a users’s Origin account carries over into EA desktop as well.
Electronic Arts SVP Michael Blank tells VentureBeat that not all of the client’s new features have been unveiled quite yet, but that the ultimate goal is to make it easier for its users on PC to access their games, including those available through subscription services like the recently rebranded EA Play.
On the branding side of things, EA Desktop represents another service that is losing the Origin branding. EA announced last month that its varying subscription services would unite under one single name, EA Play, and retire the previous platform-specific branding of EA Access for consoles and Origin Access for PC.
“One of the things we’re doing here is centralizing around a common brand,” Blank explains in that full VentureBeat chat. “The vision is connecting players in an EA ecosystem, whether through EA Play on the EA Desktop app or other ways that we can make it frictionless and convenient.”