Electronic Arts is reportedly planning on releasing four sports games in the next fiscal year, two of which will be Madden and FIFA titles. The latest iteration of EA Sport’s NFL football game Madden 20 received mixed reviews from critics upon release, and vehement hate from users on Metacritic, evident by the fact that the user score is currently at 1.6 out of 10. FIFA 20 didn’t fare any better either, in fact, EA’s soccer-simulation game has an even lower user aggregate score at 1.1 out of 10 on Metacritic.
The sports division of Electronic Arts is home to a myriad of different franchises, yet only five have had releases in the past four years: Madden, FIFA, NBA Live, UFC and NHL. Of those five franchises, only two didn’t have a 2019 iteration: NBA Live and UFC. Other prominent EA Sports series include PGA Tour, MVP Baseball and NCAA Football. PGA Tour struggled to carve out a market for itself, MVP Baseball faltered against competition from Sony’s MLB The Show franchise, and NCAA Football ran into licensing issues with the collegiate board. It’s fair to say that it’s unlikely any of these three franchises are going to be returning anytime soon.
The report that EA plans on releasing four sports games in the next calendar year, two of which will be Madden and FIFA, comes by way of industry insider and Senior Analyst at Niko Partners Daniel Ahmad. In a post on Twitter, Ahmad details EA’s planned pipeline for the fiscal year of 2021 (Apr 2020 - Mar 2021) by saying there will be “Four sports titles including FIFA and Madden… Four other major titles… Four titles from third party/indie developers… [and] Two new mobile games in soft launch.” Check out his full analysis below:
Additionally, Ahmad says that EA plans on supporting the release of PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X, whether that be through “next-gen” software releases remains unknown. Ahmad also says EA will expand their eSports catalogue to four games. Currently, EA’s sponsored competitive games are Madden 20, FIFA 20 and Apex Legends. It’s certainly possible that the fourth eSports title has yet to be revealed, and right now fans can only speculate on what it could be, whether it’s something new or a return to an older franchise.
Although many fans would be ecstatic to hear about the return of MVP Baseball, it seems likely that EA Sport’s fourth release for the next calendar year will either be NBA Live 21 or UFC 4. From a speculative standpoint, UFC 4 seems like the better bet. The last two iterations of EA’s UFC have released on a bi-annual basis, first with UFC 2 in 2016, then with UFC 3 in 2018. As such, the release of UFC 4 in 2020 would continue this trend. Also, it makes sense that EA might want to forego the release of another version NBA Live, seeing as two of the last seven iterations have been cancelled before release. Frankly, EA has long floundered in their attempts to rival NBA 2K, so if the fourth game does happen to be Live, let’s hope that it brings some radical changes, and if it’s a sequel to the loot box-filled UFC3, hopefully changes occur there as well.
Next: NCAA Football Games Might Have A Harder Time Returning After All
Source: Twitter
