The Mass Effect: Andromeda EA/Origin Access Will Limit Your Access to the Campaign

EA and Origin Access members will get access to 10 hours of Mass Effect: Andromeda early, but their campaign progress will be limited.

We’ve known for a while now that EA and Origin Access members will get 10 hours of early access to Mass Effect: Andromeda. We didn’t know what form that 10 hours was going to take until this past weekend. You’ll be able to play all the multiplayer that you want, but you will only be able to progress to a certain point in the campaign before you’re blocked from continuing.

The news comes from a Tweet by Andromeda producer Fernando Melo. Over the weekend, he wrote,

@Xartain you can play it all in sp if you want, but it is gated (you can't cont story after a point, but can explore or restart for ex)— Fernando Melo (@DiscoBabaloo) March 5, 2017

So you can replay the limited portion of the campaign you have access to, but that time spent replaying will count as part of your 10 hours.

Also over the weekend, Melo showed off a few of the rewards you can earn in multiplayer missions. These “Pathfinder rewards” will basically grant you loot boxes. As you can see in the tweet below, there are at least two types of boxes: the Gold Item Loot Box and the Research Data Loot Box (Melo also tweeted that there will be no microtransactions in single-player).

On the 5th day of MP-mas, the MP dev team gave to you: a new feature in MEA – Missions. Your link between MP/SP. Play & get rewards in both. pic.twitter.com/rBRWxNRHjZ— Fernando Melo (@DiscoBabaloo) March 6, 2017

If you’re groaning about having to finish multiplayer missions for single-player rewards, fear not. Lead Designer Ian Frazier tweeted last night that you’ll be able to send AI strike teams to finish those missions to earn the rewards in single-player, or you can choose to complete them yourself in multiplayer to earn rewards in both modes.

Mass Effect: Andromeda will launch March 21 for PC, PS4, and Xbox One.