Mass Effect 3 Will Require Origin on PC

BioWare has confirmed that Origin will be required to play Mass Effect 3 on PC. In a forum post, Bioware's Chris Priestly revealed that physical and digital copies will require "a one time, single authorization for the single player game" and that "there is no limit to the number of installs. Playing Mass Effect 3 Multiplayer will require a constant connection."

In addition, like other recent EA titles, Mass Effect 3 won't be available on Steam. According to Priestly, "Steam has adopted a set of restrictive terms of service which limit how developers interact with customers to deliver patches and other downloadable content. We are intent on providing Mass Effect to players with the best possible experience no matter where they purchase or play their game, and are happy to partner with any download service that does not restrict our ability to connect directly with our consumers."

Priestly confirmed that "users will be allowed to opt-out of Mass Effect 3 data collection from inside the game," and refuted a question about Origin being spyware. "Origin is not spyware, and does not use or install spyware on users' machines," he wrote. "In order to allow Origin to install games and their patches for everyone to use, Origin implements a permission change that results in Windows, not Origin, reviewing the filenames in the ProgramData/Origin folder. This is an ordinary Windows function, not an information-gathering process."

Mass Effect 3 will be released on March 6th. While you wait, be sure to take a look at everything we know about the game.

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