Battlefield 2042 releases on Friday, November 19th—a busy day for new releases in video games and elsewhere, with shows like The Wheel Of Time and Cowboy Bebop dropping on Amazon Prime and Netflix respectively.
But if you want to play EA and DICE’s latest shooter early, you can hop into the massive-scale shooter a week early on November 12th. You can do this in one of several ways:
Way The First & Second
The best way—but not the cheapest—is to pre-order Battlefield 2042’s Gold ($90) or Ultimate ($110) editions or subscribe to EA Play Pro ($14.99/mo. or $99/year) which grants you access to the Ultimate edition for as long as you’re subscribed.
This gets you into the game one week early with 100% access to all Battlefield 2042 content. You can play on PS4, PS5, Xbox One, Xbox Series X or on PC via Steam, Origin or the Epic Games Store.
Honestly, the EA Play Pro route is probably the best of these three options since it also gets you access to hundreds of other EA titles including shooters like Titanfall 2 and quirky indie hits like It Takes Two.
Way The Third & Fourth
The other two ways to access Battlefield 2042 ahead of launch are both subscription-based, but neither will get you the Ultimate Edition of the game or full access to its content in the early access period.
MORE FOR YOU
Subscribing to either Xbox Game Pass or EA Play (the $5/mo. version) will get you 10 hours of access to the Standard Edition of Battlefield 2042. That’s plenty for people who just want to see what all the fuss is about and play a few matches.
Besides, if you really love it you can either upgrade your EA Play subscription or buy one of the other editions of the game after your ten hours is up.
EA Play and Xbox Game Pass subscribers should note that Battlefield 2042 will only ever be the 10-hour demo period, even after the game launches on the 19th. To keep playing you’ll need to upgrade in one form or another.
How To Play For Just $1 USD
Finally, if you’re on PC or Xbox (not PlayStation, sadly) and don’t yet have any of these subscriptions, you can get an Xbox Game Pass Ultimate 3-month trial for just a buck. This gets you access to all Xbox Game Pass content on console and PC including EA Play, which means you can theoretically play 10 hours of Battlefield 2042 for a dollar, and also get access to hundreds of other games like Halo and DOOM. It’s a helluva deal.
I’ll be playing Battelfield 2042 next week before launch though I have to admit I’m more of a Call Of Duty guy than a Battlefield guy. But who knows, maybe this year will grab me.
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