Gianni Infantino repeatedly used grand words to affirm FIFA’s gaming plans. Now it is clear how these will be realized: in the form of a mobile title.
FIFA President Gianni Infantino is truly not a man of restraint. Whenever the Swiss makes a statement about the world football association’s undertakings, superlatives are always heard. These mostly concern real sporting events, but since 2022 they have increasingly been referring to video games as well.
Ever since the split between FIFA and developer EA SPORTS became public, Infantino has repeatedly made it clear that he wants to play an important role in the gaming market even without his long-standing partner.
At the end of 2024, FIFA’s plans have now materialized. Not yet in a finished game, but at least in an announcement: “FIFA Rivals” will be the first officially licensed title since FIFA 23, which is set to conquer smartphone screens around the world from summer 2025. According to the e-sports offshoot FIFAe, FIFA is planning to open “a new chapter in football” with this game.
The developer Mythical Games is even talking about the “ultimate football experience”. So it seems that Infantino has found a suitable partner when it comes to public relations.
Between Trading Simulator and Football Pitch
But what is the game about? The title is supposed to be a free-to-play game. It doesn’t have to be bought, but can be downloaded and played for free in app stores.
Mythical Games has based the game concept on both FIFA Mobile and its own NFL Rivals. Similar to the Ultimate Team mode in FIFA 25, the aim of FIFA Rivals is to form your dream team from various player cards and use it to compete against other players or an AI for rewards.
However, the gameplay is not the only thing the game wants to be known for. “A very playable game, but also a very tradable in-game economy,” is how Mythical founder and CEO John Linden outlined the goal the company has set itself in the Space Monkeys podcast.
To do this, the developer wants to adopt a “quick trade” system from NFL Rivals. This will allow players to exchange items from rewards and mandatory loot boxes among themselves.
“We want you to be able to start with a thimble and trade your way up to a Lamborghini. That’s one of the pillars we’re working on to give players a sense of ownership, whether they spend money or not,” Linden said. However, it should also be possible to get to the top and to your dream items just by playing the game: ‘It’s about balance.’
Crypto integration as a game changer?
The fact that Mythical Games is focusing on in-game trading is also due to its embedding in Web3. As part of the blockchain network Polkadot, Mythical relies on virtual possessions, NFTs – and also its own cryptocurrency: the MYTH token.
The basic idea: players can generate in-game property and sell it for a certain number of tokens. These tokens can in turn be converted into real money.
According to Linden, there are currently three to four million transactions with MYTH tokens per month by several million players. The number of wallets, i.e. digital storage spaces for cryptocurrencies, in the MYTH cosmos, which spans several apps, has already risen to over six million.
Will this number increase in the future due to the FIFA game? Linden at least confirms that FIFA has signaled an interest in the technologies: “They didn’t have much experience with it, but they really liked what we did with NFL.”
Whether players share FIFA’s enthusiasm remains to be seen. Although FIFA Mobile enjoyed great popularity, in the scene hopes have been raised recently for a major competitor to EA SPORTS FC. Rumors of a potential collaboration between FIFA and 2K Games have repeatedly emerged.
Even critical words from Strauss Zelnick, CEO of 2K Games’ parent company Take Two Interactive, and an eSport study that confirmed one of the main sources of the speculation as untrustworthy, did not change anything.
The announcement of the mobile title should do the trick – and take the wind out of the sails of some players’ hopes: FIFA is unlikely to create a much more diverse landscape of soccer simulations.
The free-to-play model will also lead to complications. We have just tested the Pokémon Company’s free “pack opening simulator,” with devastating results. Psycho tactics combined with soccer loot boxes and cryptocurrency – the potential for FIFA to make money from the new game is huge.