EA seems to be doing its best to ensure that its final game in partnership with FIFA will go out with a bang rather than a whimper. This is because a recent leak suggested that a football club from the popular Apple TV+ show, Ted Lasso, could be coming to the game.
The leak appeared on Reddit where a user shared an image from the official EA website that contained the name ‘AFC Richmond’. This is the fictional football club that coach Lasso manages in the Apple TV Plus series Ted Lasso, and which could soon appear in the upcoming FIFA 23. There was some confusion regarding the nature of this leak as the EA website no longer shows AFC Richmond. However, EA took down some tweets that leaked this a few weeks ago, so this appears legitimate.
Ted Lasso’s AFC Richmond would be a fun addition to FIFA 23. The popular series starring Jason Sudeikis, Brett Goldstein, and Hannah Waddingham recently bagged multiple Emmys as well. The show has been a hit with audiences and currently sits at a whopping 95% critic's score on Rotten Tomatoes.
Besides this, EA has announced the addition of the Croatian national football team to FIFA 23 after an 11-year absence. Croatia’s meteoric rise in the 2018 World Cup campaign, helped by the incredible Luka Modric, made the country's absence from EA's game the more notable.
FIFA 23 also has the all-new HyperMotion2 tech which looks like a nifty upgrade from its predecessors. It looks to deliver things like better off-the-ball movement of players, more realistic jostling/tackling, and improvement to technical dribbling, among other things. The Career Mode will also have an RPG-style personality points system for the characters.
As exciting as these additions seem, EA is still holding on to its ‘lootboxes’. The company claims that they are a ‘part of FIFA that players love’, despite the surrounding controversy that it could be a form of gambling. FIFA 23 launches September 30 on all major platforms.