Can anyone who's pre-ordered it on Origin tell me if it has the same kind of release date check that BF3 used? With BF3 you just used a Korean proxy to pass the release date check and was able to play it 5 days early. I know it's up for pre-load right now. What does it say when you try and launch it?

It comes out tomorrow in the US but us over in Europe have to wait till Friday and I can't be the only one who is sick to death of being forced to wait 3 days for every single big game release.

E: had a friend test it. VPN's don't work with Origin but you can use an American proxy to bypass the release date check and play it tomorrow if you're in Europe. Score one for the consumer!

Can EA ban people that unlock games early using vpn/proxy? I also have Syndicate preloaded on my account and have to wait untill friday, which sucks.

Can they? Probably.

Would they? I doubt it.

Absolutely nothing happened when thousands of people unlocked BF3 5 days early. I Believe EA even said that it wasn't up to them when the game actually comes out and if people unlocked it and played it early then it's entirely up to them. If you use a US proxy you can just enable it to bypass the release date check, decrypt the files and then remove the proxy and be able to play the game completely fine.

when i used a proxy to unlock BF3 early EA never banned me or came after me. but  again, people went and asked EA Support if it was ok to do so and at the time they gave the go ahead. so i guess you could check with them before you do it. 

Can't you just, I dunno, play something else for the next few days?

Nope. Because I just unlocked it. 3 days is about 600 years in internet time.

That's what the distributors fail to realise. America isn't 3000+ miles away.

It's 150ms away.

I pre-loaded the entire game in half an hour. There's just no excuse for staggered release dates when the shops in both countries physically have the game at the same time.

@MonkfishEsq said:

There's just no excuse for staggered release dates when the shops in both countries physically have the game at the same time.

There is an excuse, it's just not a very good one. And hey, at least you don't have it as bad as Australia.

Kind of weird we didn't get a Quicklook.

Was waiting for it.

mine unlocked last night 2300 @GMT+8, when I was sleeping

EA pick a really weird time to unlock my game :(

also for some reason I don't have the pre-order bonus package even though I pre-ordered it on like 15 or 16th Jan..

@SnowyPliskin said:

Kind of weird we didn't get a Quicklook.

Was waiting for it.

Nah, on ILM Ryan said Tuesday.

Most retail releases get a QL on the day of their release anyway.

@Zacagawea:

My apologies, thought that was just a review.

You've been able to play for about a day with an asian VPN.

Can anyone tell me if Syndicate is Origin exclusive like BF3!? I couldn't find it on Steam, which is kind of a bummer :(

@Bouke said:

Can anyone tell me if Syndicate is Origin exclusive like BF3!? I couldn't find it on Steam, which is kind of a bummer :(

It is I'm afraid, sorry!

Also, can anyone recommend a VPN to use to unlock the game? I've never done anything like that before despite being reasonably tech-savy.

@MonkfishEsq: What program did you use? I have no idea how to do any of this so would appreciate the help!

Sure.

Go to Control Panel > Network and Internet > Internet Options

Click the Connections Tab then the LAN settings at the bottom

Tick 'Use a proxy server' then put in this IP

211.110.204.67

I don't believe it matters if Origin is open before or after you do this but it'll let you pass the release date check and decrypt the game files so you can play. Just delete the ip/untick the box after you're done.