FIFA 23 is a football simulation video game published by Electronic Arts. It is the 30th and final installment in the FIFA series that is developed by EA Sports, and released worldwide on 30 September 2022 for PC, Nintendo Switch, PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Xbox One, Xbox Series X/S and Google Stadia. Players who pre-ordered the Ultimate Edition, however, received three days of early access and were able to play the game from 27 September.
The game is the final under the partnership between EA and FIFA. Future football games by EA without the inclusion of the FIFA name are set to be named under the banner of EA Sports FC.
Crossplay
FIFA 23 features a degree of crossplay. Crossplay is available in FIFA Ultimate Team (FUT) Division Rivals (excluding co-op), FUT Champions, FUT Ultimate Online Draft, FUT Online Friendlies (excluding Co-Op), FUT Play a Friend, Online Friendlies, Online Seasons (excluding Co-Op Seasons) and the Virtual Bundesliga. However, crossplay is limited to consoles that fall within the same console generation. For example, those on the PlayStation 4 are be able to play with and against players on Xbox One, but not the PlayStation 5 or Xbox Series X/S and vice versa. Pro Clubs will not support crossplay.
The decision to omit Pro Clubs from crossplay has received criticism from the FIFA community.
HyperMotion2 and Technical Dribbling
The game features what’s being dubbed as “HyperMotion2”, a system of match capture with machine learning from real life football matches to create over 6,000 in-game animations. Technical Dribbling uses what is being called the Active Touch system to improve the footballer’s path to the ball and improve a player’s turning and dribbling with more responsiveness. Both systems are exclusive to current-gen versions (i.e. PS5, Xbox Series X/S, Stadia and PC).
World Cup game modes
FIFA 23 features both men’s and women’s World Cup game modes, replicating the 2022 FIFA World Cup and the 2023 FIFA Women’s World Cup.
New icons and removed icons
FIFA 23 features three new icons to its ICON Collection with the addition of Gerd Müller, Xabi Alonso and Jairzinho. With new addition to these three, 8 of the previously added icons are missing from the Icons List released by EA Sports. Diego Maradona, Ryan Giggs, Pep Guardiola, Deco, Marc Overmars and Filippo Inzaghi have been removed as icons for FIFA 23. Jay-Jay Okocha and Hidetoshi Nakata have been removed as icons for FIFA 23, but are now featured as heroes.
New Heroes
FIFA 23, in an exclusive deal with Marvel, features 21 new heroes to the existing heroes collection from FIFA 22 with the additions of: Lúcio, Jean-Pierre Papin, Rudi Völler, Diego Forlán, Rafael Márquez, Javier Mascherano, Ricardo Carvalho, Tomas Brolin, Harry Kewell, Yaya Touré, Claudio Marchisio, Landon Donovan, Joan Capdevila, Sidney Govou, Dirk Kuyt, Park Ji-sung, Włodzimierz Smolarek, Saeed Al-Owairan and Peter Crouch.
Women’s Club Football
This entry in the FIFA video game series is the first to introduce women’s club football. England’s FA Women’s Super League and the French Division 1 Féminine are included at launch, with more women’s football leagues planned to be added later on. This comes alongside Sam Kerr, who plays for Chelsea Women, becoming the first female footballer to feature on the global front cover of the game.
Licences
FIFA 23 contains over 30 licensed leagues, over 100 licensed stadiums, over 700 clubs and more than 19,000 players. Roma, Atalanta, Lazio and Napoli are not featured in FIFA 23 due to their exclusivity agreements with rival game eFootball, and are instead known as Roma FC, Bergamo Calcio, Latium and Napoli FC respectively. The game retains the players’ likenesses, but the official badge, kits and stadiums are replaced with custom designs and generic stadiums created by EA Sports. The game no longer feature the teams of the J1 League, due to EA and J.League’s six year partnership coming to an end. Juventus, having been similarly absent for the past three entries and thus known as Piemonte Calcio, are featured in the game however. The game features fictional club AFC Richmond and their stadium Nelson Road from the Apple TV+ series Ted Lasso.
New stadiums added to the game include the Philips Stadion, home of PSV Eindhoven, the Europa-Park Stadion, home of SC Freiburg, the Banc of California Stadium, home of Los Angeles FC, and the Academy Stadium, home of Manchester City Women. The Juventus Stadium, home of Juventus, is also added, having been absent from the past few entries due to licence issues. Nottingham Forest’s stadium, the City Ground, will be added post-launch via an update.
