EA Sports have finally caught up to the rapid growth of Women’s football around the world. With their latest edition to the FIFA gaming franchise, EA Sports have announced that it will feature women’s club teams.
With FIFA 23 coming out on September 30th, there will now be an option to play either men’s or women’s football at no additional cost to players. With 24 clubs to choose from, players can fight to win the Women’s World Cup Championship. The women’s clubs come from the English Barclays FA Women’s Super League and France’s top flight D1 Arkema.
With the franchise historically having the largest and most engaging gaming communities in the world, Navin Singh, The English Football Association’s Commercial Director, is honored to have Barclay’s Women’s Super League be one of the first women’s club competitions to be featured.
Francois Vasseur, Marketing Director of the French Football Federation explained how “this partnership between D1 Arkema and EA SPORTS is excellent news for the league, the clubs, the players, but also for the fans who, starting this year, will be able to discover their favorite players and participate in exclusive activations. It represents a huge step for D1 Arkema as a leading league with a worldwide following."
New #FIFA23 Cover Athlete: Confirmed ⭐️@chelseafcw striker. 🔵@TheMatildas captain. 🦘@easportsfifa 🤝 @samkerr1 pic.twitter.com/XoD2qfXNNV
— EA SPORTS FIFA (@EASPORTSFIFA) July 19, 2022
FIFA announced back in May that the 30-year partnership with EA Sports will end in 2023. FIFA will then make their own gaming series and EA Sports will also rebrand to become EA Sports FC.
Sam Kerr, a Chelsea and Australian forward, will be the first woman featured on global cover of the Ultimate Edition of the game alongside French World Cup winner, Kylian Mbappe.
Previously Canadian Christine Sinclair, Australian Steph Cately, and American World Cup winner, Alex Morgan, appeared on local versions of FIFA 16 released in their prospective countries. It was released in 18 different languages and according to the Guiness Book of World Records, is the best-selling video game franchise as of 2021 with 325 million copies sold.
There were 12 international teams released in FIFA 16, but since then, there has been 6 added teams including Scotland, Portugal, The Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway and Belgium making a total of 18 international teams.
With the advancements of HyperMotion2 technology, it’s not just female faces and names in the video game, FIFA 23 has added all-new animations that capture the movements of females during the game.
Nick Wlodyka, Senior Vice-President and General Manager of EA Sports FC, and his team have pushed the boundaries of realism with HyperMotion2. They are able to capture real men’s and women’s teams in full intensity games and translate their motions into animation in real time.
FIFA 23 will be released everywhere on September 30, 2022.
