It has been speculated for months that FIFA 22 could be the last part of the legendary saga of the Electronic Arts football simulator. After 29 years of continuous supply, EA has finally confirmed that its contract with FIFA will expire during this month of December, so FIFA 23 will say goodbye to this franchise. Or rather “I’ll see you later”.

And that’s in line with what the 30th anniversary of these games would be, next installment, which will be published in July 2023, will arrive under the name EA Sports FC.

However, despite the removal of the name FIFA, the publisher will abide by its agreements with the vast majority of football leagues, teams, players and brands that are now presentincluding LaLiga, Premier League, Bundesliga, Serie A and MLS, with a total of more than 700 teams with 19,000 footballers and more than 100 stadiums.

In fact, Andrew Wilson, CEO of EA, has already said that FIFA licenses limit what its developers can put into their games because they are unable to place certain game modes beyond classic 11v11 matches and take advantage of some of the agreements FIFA has had with some brands like Nike.

However, the company promises that its future games will retain all the content and modes from recent versions of FIFA, with the sole exception of the special content associated with the World Cup. And that’s how we’ll continue to have the original regimes created by EA, as well as those in the rest of the affiliate competitions, so we can create leagues and tournaments, continue the successful Ultimate Team, Volta mode and even single player campaigns in career regime. In fact, EA has already announced new custom agreements with brands such as Nike itself, which it provides The transition from FIFA 23 to the new EA Sports FC will hardly be noticeable.

The future of FIFA

FIFA President Gianni Infantino claims that “The FIFA title is the only original global title. FIFA 23, FIFA 24, FIFA 25 and FIFA 26 etc., the constant is the name of FIFA and will remain forever and will remain the “best”«. And that’s exactly what the football association promised in response to EA’s announcement the future arrival of other FIFA-branded products and games from other gaming companies.

It is not clear who will take over EA now, Konami is the only other company in this market with simulation games, and the latest release of eFootball has quite “stumbled”.