PSA: Origin downtime scheduled for tonight, no Mass Effect 3 or Battlefield 3 multiplayer

Origin servers will be taken down for maintenance tonight from 10 PM to 1:30 AM PDT. According to EA's notice , Origin will be available in offline mode during those hours, and the single-player portions of EA/Origin games will still be accessible. The multiplayer modes in games such as Mass Effect 3 and Battlefield 3, however, will not be playable. Additionally, any purchases made via Origin will be added to a queue and delivered after the outage ends.

GameSpy will also be down for five hours starting at the same time, so games which use the service, such as Battlefield: Bad Company 2 and Red Alert 3, will go dark as well. According to EA, the downtime is needed to "improve and prepare for bigger changes in the weeks and months ahead."

Tyler grew up in Silicon Valley during the '80s and '90s, playing games like Zork and Arkanoid on early PCs. He was later captivated by Myst, SimCity, Civilization, Command & Conquer, all the shooters they call "boomer shooters" now, and PS1 classic Bushido Blade (that's right: he had Bleem!). Tyler joined PC Gamer in 2011, and today he's focused on the site's news coverage. His hobbies include amateur boxing and adding to his 1,200-plus hours in Rocket League.