The Reticule

FIFA the governing body of world football, and FIFA the football series from EA have long gone hand-in-hand, with many probably only knowing of it as the game. But it appears the governing body and EA are heading for divorce. FIFA are looking to diversify their licensing agreements, while EA are actively discussing renaming the franchise. The game series itself is coming under increasingly heavy criticism for the continued use of loot boxes in the Ultimate Team mode.

Wesley Yin-Poole on Eurogamer has a fantastic interview with EA Chief Experience Officer Chris Bruzzo. It’s an insightful interview and shows that EA will continue to use loot boxes in Ultimate Team as part of the FIFA franchise, but if the franchise was to change name, I wonder whether EA would change their approach and introduce monetisation more akin to a season pass.

While we ponder the future of one football franchise, its worth thinking about the disastrous launch that eFootball has had. The successor to Pro Evo Soccer, this one has gone down like a lead balloon, even if the live service football theory might be one EA follow themselves. Time will tell!

In the meantime, hit the jump for Our Week in Games. …

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The big news last week was Nintendo surprise dropping a new Nintendo Direct. Those rumours of a Switch Pro still aren’t turning into anything substantial, but Nintendo did reveal that in late October they will be releasing an “expansion” to their Nintendo Online offering. This will bring a range of N64 and Sega Mega Drive titles to the service.

For some serious analysis of this change, take a look at this piece on GI.biz then hit the break for Our Week in Games.

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Well, that was a lot of drama wasn’t it.

CEO of Tripwire Entertainment making public comments on the Texas Supreme-court ruling (preventing women from having autonomy over their own bodies), and then paying the inevitable price when he ‘moved on’ from the role shortly after. One can’t help but wonder, given how often this sort of thing happens, why those who decry games for being “political” are the same people making comments like this. Hopefully the damage to the developers under the Tripwire umbrella wasn’t too severe and we can all just move along now.

In other news the Knights of the Old Republic remake has been announced to much squeeing (it’s a word) on the internet. Interestingly Bioware, the original games developers, appear to not be involved. Watch this space for more on this as and when we get it, but colour us very excited.

Feel free to make the lightsaber swoosh/vroom noise in your head now.

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One hundred and fifty of these wonderful Our Week in Games features. We hope you have enjoyed them over the years!

This week saw a remaster of Quake appear, and we do of course recommend you read these words from Ross about that.

Now, hit the break for more of Our Week in Games.

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