Electronic Arts released the trailer of FIFA 23 on Tuesday, which is the last game of the FIFA series developed by EA. The highlight of this game is the inclusion of women’s club football teams for the first time.
EA also revealed on Tuesday that, the cover of the game is featuring both a male and female player (also for the very first time). Chelsea’s Sam Kerr shares the honour with PSG’s Kylian Mbappé. Kerr becomes the series’ first global female cover star, which was long overdue.
FIFA 23 features only two leagues, to begin with; the FA Women’s Super League and the French Division 1 Féminine. There will be broadcast overlays for each team and authentic kits for each team. EA maintains that the roster will be expanded in the near future.
In another development, FIFA 23 features both the men’s and women’s top international tournaments. The women’s competition will take place in New Zealand and Australia during the summer of 2023, whereas, the men’s competition will begin in Qatar in the month of November. Football fans can expect to experience a live gaming experience of both tournaments in FIFA 23, along with real stadiums, uniforms, and props.
EA’s FIFA 16 was the first to include women’s football in their 30-year-old gaming series. However, there were just a few foreign teams involved in that game. Last year’s installment increased the number of international squads to 17. It also allowed users to create a female player for the game’s Pro Clubs mode. However, it received the backlash that the inclusion of the women’s game is essentially a PR stunt because of the restricted restrictions.
The popularity of women’s games is increasing at its best, aided by the recent Euro 2022 event. “We’re committed to building an equitable experience and aspire to help grow women’s football,” said FIFA 23 producer, Matt Lafreniere.
She further added, “We are going to have a lot of exciting things to share around women’s football in the coming months, so stay tuned.”
The company has stated that further information regarding women’s club game, such as the subsequent inclusion of other leagues, will be disclosed over the next several months. It has been confirmed that female players have been motion captured to help insure authentic animation. Furthermore, women’s matches will benefit from the game’s new Hypermotion 2 technology, which applies machine learning to motion-captured data to create new, realistic player movements on the fly. In addition, it has been confirmed that motion capture has been used to ensure that authentic animation will be used.
The FIFA video game franchise, which has been created by EA for the past 30 years, will end with FIFA 23. In May, it was announced that the publisher will lose the licence because of a dispute over exclusivity and prices. Now, a wide variety of video game developers will be able to use the FIFA video game licence. While this is all going on, Electronic Arts have stated that it will begin using the EA Sports FC name in 2023.