EA Sports FC 24 Review: FIFA’s Promised Rebirth Remains a Rehash

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At this point, FIFA, EA's long-running and ridiculously successful sports video game franchise, is perhaps just as big as football itself. In fact, FIFA games are inseparable from the sport; spoken of together, complementing each other, and influencing and informing each other as both the video game and the sport continue to change and churn. EA Sports FIFA is also deeply tied with football culture. People who watch football, play FIFA. Heck, professional footballers play FIFA. Elite players who make it to the cover of a FIFA game consider it as a career achievement. Football entities are invested in the franchise, which wields the irreplicable marketing strength to bring footballers, leagues, football clubs and competitions to a truly global audience. It is a mutual, symbiotic relationship between the biggest sport in the world and the biggest sports video game franchise in the world, where the balance of power and exchange of identity continuously shift. One thing is clear, that both have been incredibly and immeasurably instrumental in each other's successes, keeping each other fed and fat.

This highly lucrative and profitable 30-year partnership, that began with FIFA International Soccer in 1993, changed last year when EA and Fédération Internationale de Football Association (FIFA), the global soccer administrative body that governs the beautiful game and lends its name to the video game franchise, terminated their licensing agreement. This meant that EA Sports' football video games could no longer be called FIFA, a globally recognised brand name that the series had practically become synonymous with. Imagine, if McDonald's could no longer call their restaurants McDonald's, or if Coca Cola started botting their