On 4 September 2016, EA Sports announced at Brasil Game Show 2016 that 18 Campeonato Brasileiro Série A teams will be featured in their respective league ( Corinthians and Flamengo, who signed an exclusivity deal with Konami for Pro Evolution Soccer, do not appear). On 23 June 2016, EA Sports announced that the J1 League and J.League Cup will be featured in the game for the first time.
New goal celebrations, such as Paul Pogba's ' Dab' and Mesut Özil's 'M' celebration, feature in the game. ĮA Sports announced at E3 2016 that they will have all 20 Premier League managers' likenesses in the game. Commentary in other languages (such as Spanish and French) is also provided. Ĭommentary is once again provided by Martin Tyler and Alan Smith with Alan McInally (in-game score updates), Geoff Shreeves (injury reports), and Mike West (classified results for major leagues). EA also announced at Gamescom 2016 that Squad Building Challenges and FUT Champions will be in FIFA Ultimate Team, but not in the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 editions of the game. It's an exciting time to be a football game fan – it looks like things are about to really shake up for the first time in over a decade.The new features in FIFA 17 include new attacking techniques, physical player overhaul, active intelligence system and set piece rewrite. That could spell bad news for EA: though PES-successor eFootball seemed to fall at the first hurdle with its botched launch earlier this year, there are other football gaming competitors out there that could pose a viable threat to FIFA – the recently revealed UFL football, for one.Īs if to challenge EA directly, the statement also notes FIFA is "excited about using the FIFA World Cup as platforms to launch and integrate exciting new games and eSports offerings." Consequently, FIFA is engaging with various industry players, including developers, investors and analysts, to build out a long-term view of the gaming, eSports and interactive entertainment sector.” “Technology and mobile companies are now actively competing to be associated with FIFA, its platforms, and global tournaments.
“FIFA is bullish and optimistic about its long-term future in gaming and eSports following a comprehensive and strategic assessment of the gaming and interactive entertainment market,” the statement says. Now, as if in direct response to EA's public gestures towards ditching the FIFA name, the football body has repsonded with a statement that pulls no punches. This apparently happened because FIFA was apparently looking to more than double the cost of its licence, looking at charging EA over $1 billion per every four-year World Cup cycle to retain the FIFA branding.
It's been a pretty electric week in the world of football games – after EA suggested that the FIFA series may drop its now-classic branding, the publisher has trademarked EA Sports FC – hinting at what the future of the series may look like. The on-going fracture between EA and FIFA seems to have widened over the weekend, as the football body issued a statement seemingly directly targeted at EA, noting that it believes football gaming and esports "must involve more than one party controlling and exploiting all rights".