How to watch EA Play Live

The big E3 2021 press conferences are long over, except for one. Instead of joining the other companies in mid-June, EA scheduled its yearly EA Play Live event for Thursday, July 22.  

The EA Play Live preshow will start at 10 am Pacific (see other timezones) on Thursday. The stream will be viewable on Twitch (embedded above) and YouTube.

What to expect from EA Play Live

Battlefield 2042, which will be out on October 22, got a gameplay trailer at the Microsoft E3 conference, but we haven't seen any uncut gameplay. It feels probable that'll happen at EA Play Live. We also know that EA will reveal the Battlefield 2042 mode made by Ripple Effect (the studio formerly called DICE LA)—details about it leaked prior to the show

Aside from Battlefield, we'll surely hear something new about Apex Legends and the usual sports games. Star Wars Squadrons studio Motive has games in production that we could see, and rumor has it that one of them is a Dead Space reboot. That seems like a good candidate for a reveal. There's also the next Need for Speed, although the most recent news was that it was delayed until next year.

What not to expect from EA Play Live

We know more about what won't be at EA Play Life than what will be. BioWare stated that it will not be showing anything this year, so Mass Effect and Dragon Age fans can stand down. Those games are still in early production, so it makes sense. Same goes for the new Skate, which won't show up, either. EA has also said we won't see any Star Wars games.

That leaves Battlefield 2042, a rumored Dead Space reboot, sports and ongoing games like Apex Legends and Knockout City. That may be the show, unless EA has more surprises planned.

Wes Fenlon
Senior Editor

Wes has been covering games and hardware for more than 10 years, first at tech sites like The Wirecutter and Tested before joining the PC Gamer team in 2014. Wes plays a little bit of everything, but he'll always jump at the chance to cover emulation and Japanese games.


When he's not obsessively optimizing and re-optimizing a tangle of conveyor belts in Satisfactory (it's really becoming a problem), he's probably playing a 20-year-old Final Fantasy or some opaque ASCII roguelike. With a focus on writing and editing features, he seeks out personal stories and in-depth histories from the corners of PC gaming and its niche communities. 50% pizza by volume (deep dish, to be specific).