FIFA

EA's FIFA franchise, which has been going strong since the '90s with annual launches dating back to FIFA 95 for the Sega Mega Drive, could be about to undergo a name change.

The hugely popular franchise currently has, and has always had, a naming rights agreement with FIFA, the international governing body of real-world football. With the FIFA branding, EA has launched a main series game every single year since 1995 (with the Mega Drive version of FIFA International Soccer predating that), as well as a handful of other games like FIFA 64 and titles designed for mobile.

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In a press release, EA Sports' Cam Weber has shared the following:

"As we look ahead, we’re also exploring the idea of renaming our global EA SPORTS football games. This means we’re reviewing our naming rights agreement with FIFA, which is separate from all our other official partnerships and licenses across the football world."

With FIFA being right up there as one of the best-selling gaming franchises of all time, a name change would certainly come as a surprise, but time will tell if any changes actually come to pass.

The same press release notes that FIFA 22 has has a "record-breaking" launch, with the title already boasting 9.1 million players, 7.6 million Ultimate Team squads created and 460 million matches played in just over a week. Although you probably won't want to play it on Switch.

[source ir.ea.com, via twitter.com]