I know most of you are pretty excited now that the Battlefield 2042 beta weekend is upon us. For those who pre-ordered the game, you’ll get a headstart as of October 6th, while everyone else will have to wait until October 8th, 2021. But what if I told you that you don’t need to have pre-ordered the game to play the beta today? Well, you can, all thanks to Xbox Game Pass.
Current Xbox Game Pass Ultimate subscribers can access the Battlefield 2042 beta, as it is part of the EA games experience. Even better is that you can get access to the free one-month Xbox Game Pass Ultimate trial for $1, or free as people are usually handing them out. Once you get your account, here’s how you do it for the PC.
How to download the Battlefield 2042 PC Beta
Make sure you already have the Xbox app for Windows installed. If not, you’ll need to install it and then log in to it.
Once that is done, you’ll need to download the EA Desktop (BETA)
You’ll be informed that you’ll do a one-time install; you can skip the wording and click “Install EA Desktop (BETA).”
On the next pop-up, you’ll have the option to customize the install location and add a desktop shortcut.
Now that the EA Desktop is installed, the section in the Xbox app will now show “Explore EA Desktop (BETA).” Click on this to launch the new EA Desktop.
When the EA Desktop opens, on the left-hand side, click on “Browse.”
The Battlefield 2042 icon should be the first one you see. If now, you can search for it. Once you find it, click on it.
All that’s left to do is click the “Download” button to start the install.
Before the install starts, you’ll have the option to specify where you want to install the Battlefield 2042 open beta. Once you’re good with where it will install, click next.
All that’s left is to accept the terms, and the beta will download. Depending on your internet connection, it can take minutes or hours. You can see the progress of the install at the bottom left-hand side of the EA Desktop.
There you go! Access to the Battlefield 2042 open beta, ahead of everyone else. Just another benefit of Xbox Game Pass. While this is for the PC install, the Xbox One/Xbox Series X|S access is much straightforward. So you’re looking for how to do this on the console, just log into your Xbox, and the beta will be right there, assuming you have Xbox Game Pass Ultimate.
The Battlefield 2042 open beta ends on October 10th, 2021, but you’ll still have full access to all EA’s PC games. I’d take advantage of it as there are some great games on there. Including Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order, A Way out, Mass Effet Legendary Edition, It Takes Two, Curse of the Dead Gods, just to name a few.Â
Battlefield 2042 releases on November 19th, 2021, for PS5, Xbox Series X/S, PS4, Xbox One, and PC.