FIFA announces new “Digital Football” vision, an ecosystem of games from multiple publishers and developers

Football governing body FIFA has announced a new gaming strategy called Digital Football, formalising its shift to working with multiple developers and publishers following the breakdown of its long-running partnership with EA in 2022.

As part of the announcement, the organisation named the new FIFA title from new publisher/developer Delphi Interactive as FIFA World Cup Launch Edition. It described it as an “all-new FIFA World Cup simulation… letting you write your own World Cup story” and said it would arrive on Netflix in the summer.

The announcement presents a unified brand for a series of partnership deals that FIFA has signed across the games industry since the termination of its EA deal. These form part of a “Digital Football Ecosystem” which includes:

• The upcoming Neflix title developed by Delphi Interactive, launching this year
• Free-to-play mobile arcade title FIFA Heroes, developed by EMBER studio and launching this year
• The FIFA Rivals mobile game, launched in 2025 and developed by startup Mythical Games
• Partnering with GameFam’s Roblox title Super League Soccer, which was rebranded as FIFA Super Soccer
• Adding official FIFA events to Sports Interactive’s Football Manager
• Partnering with Konami’s eFootball for the official FIFAe esports tournaments
• Partnering with Epic’s Rocket League for FIFAe

FIFA said the ecosystem was considered with each game fitting into one of four categories: football action simulation (FIFA World Cup Launch Edition), football action non-simulation (FIFA Heroes), non-action simulation (Football Manager), and non-action non-simulation (FIFA Rivals). It said that it aimed to target 1.8 billion “football loving gamers” with the portfolio.

GamesIndustry.biz understands that the organisation is working on a number of additional partnership deals with different developers and publishers, with the overall goal of having a branded football experience available to all types of player globally. The announcement also includes specific reference to working with gaming creators, although no details were specified.

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