EA Announces FIFA: Battle Royale

LOS ANGELES, California — Less than 24 hours until their press conference to kick of this year’s E3 festivities, publishing giant Electronic Arts couldn’t wait any longer to irritate the gaming community and has released the first official info on their latest project titled FIFA: Battle Royale.

In a press release, EA’s Chief Design Officer and Executive Vice President Patrick Söderlund spoke about the game and how it’s expected to blend together the elements of soccer and the battle royale genre.

“This summer is the World Cup, but such an event like that is about unification through passionate competition,” says Söderlund, “But here at EA, we like to cause division and controversy, and we figured there was no better way to fulfill that philosophy, as well as pay homage to this beautiful sport, than an all-out, every-man-for-himself brawl to see who’s left standing after the carnage.”

Söderlund spent the remainder of the presser revealing some of the specifics of what to expect from the new title:

• There will be multiple game modes, but the only one confirmed for now is Free-For-All Deathmatch.
• The match starts with players being airdropped into an enormous soccer arena, which Söderlund says is “about the size of the three biggest soccer stadiums in the world combined.”
• Players can also run outside of the actual soccer field in the stadium, including the stands, various vendors, and even locker rooms.
• There will be no firearms. Instead, players will need to search the map for various soccer balls, each with their own distinct uses and attributes. When you get a ball, you need to then try to kick it into other players in order to eliminate them.

• Some of these include: The Fireball, the Spikey Ball, the Moneyball, the Sludgeball, the Clusterball, the Football, and the Golden Ball (the rarest in the game)
• Players will be able to earn in-game cash to purchase unlockable content. EA says these are purely cosmetic items — like character skins of soccer players from teams around the world and other famous gaming characters — and that they have learned from their mistakes in the past. “We want these to just be bonuses, nothing that keeps everyone’s favorites locked behind a paywall,” says Söderlund.
• Lionel Messi and Christiano Ronaldo skins will cost 100,000 in-game credits.
• The game will be rated M.

Before concluding, Söderlund shared a story about an instance that he felt captured the tremendous excitement of the FIFA: Battle Royale gameplay experience:

“During one of our playtests, a player had been lucky enough to stumble upon the Golden Ball, and the entire room completely froze in anticipation. Almost immediately after discovering the Golden Ball, though, the player was being pelted with shots from a far away, well-guarded position in the stands. As a last-ditch effort, with barely any health remaining, he shot the Golden Ball towards his opponent….and it connected! The ball decapitated the opposing player, then landed on the bleachers and caused a giant, golden explosion that managed to melt the flesh off of and incinerate the remaining 4 players that happened to be in it’s blast radius. Needless to say, the room erupted with cheers after seeing such a miraculous play, and moments like these are what FIFA: Battle Royale is all about.”

FIFA: Battle Royale is expected to launch in an obnoxious fashion later this year, after the Battle Royale trend has run it’s course and peoples’ interest has completely dissipated.