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 rise of personal computers, playing games like Zork and Arkanoid on the early PCs his parents brought home. He was later captivated by Myst, SimCity, Civilization, Command & Conquer, Bushido Blade (yeah, he had Bleem!), and all the shooters they call "boomer shooters" now. In 2006, Tyler wrote his first professional review of a videogame: Super Dragon Ball Z for the PS2. He thought it was OK. In 2011, he joined PC Gamer, 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.