After nearly 30 years, the International Federation of Association Football (FIFA) and Electronic Arts (EA) have ended their long-running video game partnership.

This news comes via an official announcement on EA’s website and social media channels, confirming that they will be re-branding their football games as “EA Sports FC” in Summer 2023, which will make this year’s entry the final one released under the FIFA brand. Despite the name change, EA assures fans that “everything you love” about FIFA will still remain even after the name change.

On the flip side, FIFA has announced that they hope to diversify their game offerings after ending this exclusivity deal. In a press release, FIFA’s president Gianni Infantino had this to say about the matter:

“I can assure you that the only authentic, real game that has the FIFA name will be the best one available for gamers and football fans,” he said.

“The FIFA name is the only global, original title. FIFA 23, FIFA 24, FIFA 25 and FIFA 26, and so on – the constant is the FIFA name and it will remain forever and remain the best.”

EA’s plan to rebrand their FIFA game series, as well as end their partnership with the association has been rumored since last October, reportedly because the association was asking to increase their licensing cost to $1 billion for each World Cup cycle. Now that its official however, it will be interesting to see how this will affect the franchise moving forward.

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