Call me cheap

homie that game is $70

You're not cheap, you're literally trying not to get robbed

You can buy a few dozen really good indie games for a fraction of that price

That urge to buy and play it ASAP is marketing doing its job.

Easier said than done, but if you really hate EA, your only choice is to eat the FOMO.

Otherwise, you're feeding the beast.

Disclaimer: I'm high

Make friends with someone that's paid for it.

Play it on a friend's account that owns the game.

Nope.

Best advice would be to forget it exists. There are actually thousands of other games out there that are almost exactly like Battlefield, I doubt the Next New Thing™ will be worth giving up a little bit of sanity over.

It's been a while since I've done it, but maybe buying it on steam and returning it before the few hour playtime limit?

Not many comments seem to be from anyone who has played it. So if it helps, I am playing it and very very much so loving it. It feels like an actual BF game, again! Also to preface, the BF series has probably been my favorite multiplayer shooter since BF2, and I did not like 5 or 2042.

It is a very solid core of a game, and I can easily see this only (hopefully) getting more content and even better with time.

Some new things that are awesome: Dragging away downed team mates to revive. Being able to ride on the back of the main battle tanks, hop off and repair, then jump on the back again. All 4 classes come with outstanding starter guns. The amount of weapon customizations, it's like a diet Tarkov. The War Tapes audio setting got a new and even more intense version. Not exactly new, but it looks amazing and runs well.

At the very least I'd try it with the EA pass. If you're a fan of the series, especially BC2, BF3, and 4, then I'd bet you enjoy it.

If you Really want to try it out, a helpful steam user, as much as steam users can be helpful, suggested using a streaming service such as GeForce now to play it even on Linux.

I'm not sure, but I believe this bypasses the many requirements this "game" needs.

Haven't bought an EA game since Mass Effect 3 where the day one DLC caused the DRM to block the game from launching and tech support just gave up and hung up after their script failed to fix. Downloaded a crack for my fully bought and paid for game and fixed it myself in 5 minutes. Screw them, their games are shovelware anyway.

Get it from the library?

I don't think there is, gonna have to try and imply via gameplay videos.