September is going to be a busy month for sports titles, with EA announcing today that FIFA 16 is launching on September 22 in North America and September 25 in Europe for the PlayStation 4, PlayStation 3, Xbox One, Xbox 360, and PC.
For the first time in franchise history, 12 Women’s National Teams from Australia, Brazil, Canada, China, England, France, Germany, Italy, Mexico, Spain, Sweden, and the United States of America will be present in several FIFA 16 game modes including Kick Off, an Offline Tournament, as well as Online Friendly Matches.
Motion capturing four players from the US National Team – Sydney Leroux, Abby Wambach, Alex Morgan, and Megan Rapinoe – those 12 top-ranked teams will have all new player movement and likeness, as well as realistic animations and attributes. The players’ movements helped to build new locomotion for women in FIFA 16 including new walks, runs, sprints, and horizontal movement, with a headscanning unit at tournaments and events around the world capturing facial features and hairstyles of players.
As the description adds, “Players in the game will look and move in game like they do on the pitch when representing their country.”
EA Sports FIFA VP and GM David Rutter said:
Bringing some of the best women’s players and teams in the world to our franchise is a massive event for EA Sports, and we are equally excited about bringing millions of fans a new way to play. We’re making sure fans get an authentic experience when playing with Women’s National Teams thanks to our innovative player capture and reference tools, as well as the sophisticated gameplay platform which we will continue to innovate on in FIFA 16.
United States Women’s National Team Forward Abby Wambach added:
I honestly can’t believe all of the science and technology behind the game itself, let alone getting us into the motion capture suits and eventually into the game. We’re all excited to see ourselves in the game, but even more excited to see the reaction from all of the fans, including the fans of our team that maybe wouldn’t be expecting something like this from EA Sports.
Although they didn’t go into detail, the press release said, “Not all features available on all gaming platforms.”
According to the official website, we’ll hear “exclusive gameplay news” about FIFA 16 next month during E3 2015.
