Electronic Arts launches surprise cloud gaming test

Electronic Arts is running a public two-week test of its streaming gaming service Project Atlas, beginning tonight (Monday) at 10 p.m. PT / 1 a.m. ET. Players who sign up for the test, and who are signed up to EA’s retail portal Origin, will be offered a chance to play four EA games, via the cloud: FIFA 19, Need for Speed Rivals, Titanfall 2 and Unravel.

In a post on Medium today, EA’s chief technology officer Ken Moss wrote: “We’ll be taking an important step in this learning journey as we host an exclusive external trial for our players to experience games streamed through EA’s cloud technology.” Last year, Moss unveiled Project Atlas, a unified publishing platform that includes cloud gaming. Moss stated that more than a thousand people are working on the new technology at EA, which he described as an “engine plus services platform.”

The new trial is available to users of various platforms including Mac, smart TVs, tablet, PC, OTT and smartphones. “Our goal is to gather more inputs at scale to test performance and quality of service in a variety of network conditions and on multiple server routing scenarios,” he wrote. “While this particular trial will be focused on cloud gaming on PC, we are also working to understand performance across multiple other devices. Most importantly, we are here to learn how to improve and enhance the cloud gaming experience for our players.”

Here’s a link to the EA’s cloud gaming trial sign-up page.