You Can Play FIFA 21 A Week Early: Here's How

FIFA 21 lands on PS4, Xbox One, and PC on October 9. If you want to play it a little early, however, you still have a bit of time. You'll have the chance to try out the new features and shake off the rust before everyone else.

EA Sports confirmed in its announcement of the FIFA World Celebration that the early-access period for FIFA 21 started October 1 for players with EA Play. This is a 10-hour early access trial that includes pre-launch challenges and rewards. Hopefully that will be enough to keep early birds entertained until the rest of us can hop in.

That is, if you are able to access EA Play at all. EA is aware that users are encountering issues accessing the app. Given FIFA's popularity, this could possibly come down to overload, but it will likely iron out any issues shortly. You can use a workaround to still access the game by downloading the trial, as well.

Beginning in November, EA Play will be included in Xbox Game Pass Ultimate subscriptions. It arrives just in time for Xbox Series X and Xbox Series S

An EA Play subscription ($5/month or $30/year) isn't the only way to get on the field early, however. If you pre-order the Champions or Ultimate edition of the game, you'll receive three days of early access, along with various other in-game goodies. This three day period doesn't have a time limit attached, unlike the EA Play trial. The Ultimate edition is $100, or $90 for EA Play members, and the Champions edition is $80 or $72 for EA Play members.

Your progress from the early access trial will carry over to the full game if you decide to take the plunge, and thanks to dual entitlement you can upgrade your copy of FIFA 21 to Xbox Series X/S or PS5 for free. Note that if you're planning to buy a discless version of the next-gen consoles, you'll need to grab your copy of FIFA digitally on your current console to get that next gen upgrade. Progress from your current console will also transfer over to next gen and back, though this excludes online modes.

FIFA 21 is bringing a number of updates to its game mechanics, including new dribbling and a player lock feature. For more on FIFA 21, check out our video above of all the goals we were able to make in the beta.

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