It’s been a long time since we had a true competitor to EA Sports in the soccer simulator world, but according to new rumors, 2K Sports is working on a new FIFA game that will supposedly be released this year.
In a post by MohPlay Inc. on X, formerly Twitter, they claimed that 2K Sports had reached a partnership with football’s governing body FIFA to develop a new series to rival EA Sports FC. The tweet claims that FIFA 2K25 is set to launch this year, just in time for the 2026 FIFA World Cup. This development timeline seems very quick, unless 2K were already working on a soccer game and landed the licensing after development had already begun.
This story was then corroborated by Insider Gaming’s Mike Straw, who suggested there was “more smoke to this,” and that nobody was willing to talk to him about it on the record, before suggesting that an announcement was coming “sooner rather than later.”
This matches up with rumors from earlier in the year that suggested 2K and FIFA were in discussions, following the split between EA Sports and FIFA in 2023. The pair, who had worked together since the release of FIFA International Soccer in 1993, could not come to terms on a licensing agreement for the FIFA name, with EA Sports eventually deciding to move on without the branding and releasing EA Sports FC 24 in 2023.
This would mark the first major competitor to EA Sports in a while, as while Konami’s Pro Evolution Soccer was a true rival to FIFA in the mid-2000s, its eFootball successor has failed to make a dent in the footballing juggernaut.
As we’ve seen in the past, competition is good for everyone, as it forces developers to up their games to keep ahead of their competition. Of course, take this all with a pinch of salt until we get confirmation from FIFA or 2K Sports, but as a fan of the game, I’d love to see someone take it to EA Sports.
