EA's Sports FC team isn't worried about that rumoured FIFA revival
"A fun, deep football game takes many years."
The development team behind EA Sports FC 25 - which launches this year on 27th September and hosts England star Jude Bellingham on its cover - isn't worried about a potential revival of the FIFA brand at another developer.
FIFA itself has not been shy about wanting to rope in a new company to make a fresh football game with its branding, following the collapse of its long-running partnership with EA Sports back in 2022.
Rumours have persisted that the FIFA licence has now been picked up by another developer with plans to launch a fresh FIFA product in time for the next World Cup. Who could it be? Well, 2K, publisher of the NBA 2K, PGA Tour 2K and WWE 2K sports series, has reportedly been in the frame.
So, are EA's FC team worried about a new rival? In short, no, not at all.
"We welcome competition," EA Sports FC associate producer Sam Rivera told Eurogamer's Chris Tapsell at preview event for FC 25 last week. "We welcome competition and I think that's good. It's good for everyone. We want to see what other what other football games can do.
"But what I can tell you is [that to] create a fun, deep football game takes many years. For us, like literally every year, just on community feedback, we take in thousands of changes, little things here and there. We try so many different things and then we're finally in a position where we know how we can fix these.
"If you compare [EA Sports FC] 24 and [FIFA] 14 - 10 years difference - there's a lot of improvements, a lot of things that you can right away see. The amount of bugs, amount of problems [it had], the game [now] is just a lot more polished. And that takes 10 years to get there. So basically it takes time, iteration, knowing what the community wants. Those things don't happen just by themselves. You need to hear from them. They don't get built by themselves. It's an interesting process we go through every year."
Ultimate Team line producer Karthik Venkateshan also discussed the likely impending arrival of a new footballing game rival.
"I guess from a dev perspective, we're excited - we're football fans ourselves," Venkateshan said. "We're excited when something pops up, we're always playing other games, seeing different takes. I'm like, 'Oh, they approached it that way'. Like, what do we think about it?
"And it's also - I don't know, healthy? The little bit of American in me thinks its healthy when there's competition? [I'm] energised, more so than like... 'am I worried?' No, not really."
For much more on this year's game from EA, read Eurogamer's big EA Sports FC 25 preview - with details on its proper career mode update, Football Manager-style tactics system, FUT tweaks, and more.
This interview is based on a trip to EA Sports in Vancouver. EA covered flights and accomodation.