Mass Effect: Andromeda PC pre-load date revealed along with controller support, early play on Origin and Access

Those who plan on picking up Mass Effect: Andromeda for PC will be able to pre-load the game on March 17, according to two EA Origin users.

Over on reddit, North American user kami77 and European user GameM4T both posted screencaps of their Origin accounts showing the pre-load date and times.

According to both screencaps, the game can be pre-loaded on March 17 at 10am PT/1pm ET/6pm UK. That will definitely save you some time downloading files on launch day.

EA Access and Origin users on Xbox One and PC, respectively, will also get to play Mass Effect: Andromeda early for a limited time. Usually, folks who pre-order the game can play EA titles through these services early, sometimes up to a week. Bioware hasn't stated how early folks can play it, as far as we are aware, but we suspect the same time frame - or close to it - will apply.

Those who are buying the game for PC should expect the minimum and recommended specs to drop sometime next month.

One thing which was confirmed for the PC version earlier this week, is controller support - which Mass Effect 2 and Mass Effect 3 lacked (thanks, PCgamesN).

All of that is good news, then.

Bioware announced the release date for Mass Effect: Andromeda during CES 2017 this week.

It will arrive on PC, PlayStation 4 and Xbox One March 21 in North America and March 23 in Europe.