Rumours have been percolating for the past week or so that EA is planning on bringing at least some portion of its games catalogue back to Steam, and now EA has got in on the speculation. The company posted a piping hot cup of something in an EA-branded mug on its official Twitter account Friday.
There’s no text in the tweet, just an ellipsis paired with an animated image of an EA mug sitting on a desk, full of something that is noticeably hot and, well, steamy.
There aren’t any other details immediately apparent in the clip. The background is out of focus, but it could be fall foliage. All we really have to go on is the cup, which says EA on it, and the steam rising out of the top.
This certainly seems like a knowing wink about the rumours of EA’s plan to return to Steam, which surfaced this week as Reddit discovered changes in Steam’s database. Frustratingly, however, there’s no clarity on which titles EA plans on bringing back to Valve’s storefront.
Here’s the cryptic tweet itself:
— Electronic Arts (@EA) October 25, 2019
Redditors reckon EA will only bring back certain older titles to Steam, games like Dragon Age II and The Saboteur, both of which have had database entry changes over the past year. But it will likely also include games at least as new as Mirror’s Edge Catalyst, which came out in 2016. That game’s box art was spotted in March when Valve showed off an image of Steam’s redesign.
Currently, those games are all only available in retail boxes and via EA’s Origin storefront, which is also where you have to go to play games like Titanfall 2 (which happens to be one of the best FPS games on PC), Apex Legends, and The Sims 4.
So, questions remain: Will new EA games, like Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order remain exclusive to Origin on PC? What does this mean for EA’s Origin Access subscription program?
Whatever the case, now that EA has decided to entertain the rumours officially, it’s likely we’ll be finding out before too long.