EA Says Don’t Worry About the Player Faces in FC 24, the In-Game Visuals Will Be ‘Amazing’

After the game’s cover was widely ridiculed on social media, EA claimed that players’ faces in EA Sports FC 24 would be “great”.

This week, EA pulled back the curtain on FC 24, the first post-FIFA football game, revealing the Ultimate Edition cover. This jacket is like the soccer version of The Beatles’ cover for his 1967 album Sgt. The Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band included a number of current and retired players who stood together for a club photo.

The group photo features legends like Pelé, Zinedine Zidane and David Beckham alongside current stars like Erling Haaland, Jude Bellingham and Sam Kerr. It didn’t take long for memes to flood in. In particular, the virtual faces of Bukayo Saka, Andrea Pirlo and Ronaldinho were chosen because they least resembled their real counterparts or were unintentionally hilarious. Some thought the players looked so bad that they looked more like characters from The Sims than photorealistic soccer players.

The faces have caused some FIFA fans to raise concerns about the visuals of the game itself, but EA said the faces don’t represent what players can expect on the virtual pitch.

In an interview with IGN, EA executive producer John Shepard hinted at the licensing nightmare EA Sports faced when putting together the cover, requiring multiple approvals and making it even more difficult to manage than usual. Stated.

“Given the amount of licenses we have in this game, it’s not easy to get that many players to cover in the first place,” Shepard said. “And the amount of approvals that have to be dealt with afterwards is also very complicated.

“The important thing, and I think it’s really important, is that we’re doing a lot of things to improve player favorability. We have also received very positive feedback about that cover and what it stands for and what it means for FC going forward.”

Interestingly, the FC 24 reveal trailer, which culminates in the group photo used for the cover of the Ultimate Edition, does not include Italian legend Andrea Pirlo and will be released on July 13th. He isn’t even in the group photo at the beginning of the FC 24 gameplay trailer. Pirlo suggests it was a last-minute addition to the cover of the Ultimate Edition, which may explain why he seems so… lost. Perhaps Pirlo showed up really late.

Here’s everything EA has revealed about FC 24 so far. It’s also worth noting that the Nintendo Switch version uses his Frostbite engine for the first time.

Wesley is IGN’s UK news editor. Find @wyp100 on Twitter. You can reach Wesley at: wesley_yinpoole@ign.com or confidentially wyp100@proton.me.