EA ditched the FIFA license after nearly 30 years, announcing in May 2022 that the future of the series would be called EA Sports FC. They’ve now started the promotional wheels for the first under the new title, EA Sports FC 24. There’s an announcement trailer below and a “gameplay reveal” trailer coming on July 13th.
Here’s the trailer, which is rendered in the Frostbite Engine, but not actually representative in-game footage:
FIFA23 was the first in the series to feature women’s club football, which the trailer above suggests will return. There’s also obviously the return of various footballers from previous eras.
I wouldn’t bet on much to change with the name, beyond what you can normally expect from a new yearly iteration. Probably defenders will be a bit stronger, goalkeeper AI a bit less naff, and the community will find a particularly overpowered kick within three hours of the game’s release. My money’s on lobs.
EA decided to ditch the FIFA license after FIFA reportedly asked for a huge increase in the licensing fee. EA make billions from their football games, and FIFA wanted a larger cut. EA said no, and they lose little from walking away beyond certain tournaments such as the World Cup. All the player likenesses and so on remain, as they’re licensed via separate relationships with leagues, clubs and player organisations such as FIFPro.
We’ll find out more when the gameplay trailer arrives on Thursday. It also seems likely that FC24 (which I assume is the acronym everyone will go for) will be released in September, as FIFA games always were, if a normally reliable data miner is correct.
