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EA Sports FC 24 is an association football-themed simulation video game developed by EA Vancouver and EA Romania and published by EA Sports. It is the inaugural installment in the EA Sports FC series, succeeding the FIFA video game series after Electronic Arts's partnership with FIFA concluded with FIFA 23. EA Sports FC 24 is the 31st overall installment of EA Sports' football simulation games, and was released on 29 September 2023 for Nintendo Switch, PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Windows, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X/S.

▲ FC24 Cover

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♣ Cover art

The cover for the Standard Edition of the game features Manchester City striker Erling Haaland. The cover for Ultimate Edition of the game features 31 iconic current and former players from around the world in a style akin to the cover of the album Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band. Among the notable figures are Sam Kerr, Virgil van Dijk, Son Heung-min, Zinedine Zidane, Pelé and David Beckham.

When the Ultimate Edition cover was revealed, fans commented on the poor resemblance of many figures to the real life players they represented, bringing into question whether the likenesses in the game would also be bad. Electronic Arts vice president John Shepherd soon after stated that the in-game likenesses would be improved. Shepherd explained that EA had wanted to include a large number of players to reflect the many league and club licenses they had for EA Sports FC 24, and that dealing with the approvals for so many players and kits had made designing the cover art more complex. EA had also received feedback from players after the cover debuted. Besides concern for the game graphics, fans also joked about the figures and how unintentionally funny some of the faces appeared, particularly the figure of Andrea Pirlo looking "lost" or like a Hobbit at the back; possibly a late addition to the cover, Pirlo did not appear in the other promotional material released at the same time.

Fans also noted the absence of Kylian Mbappé, Lionel Messi, and Cristiano Ronaldo from the Ultimate Edition cover.

FC Player Ranking 100

FC24 TOTY (Team of the Year)

Having previously been named "FIFA Ultimate Team", the FIFA brand prefix was dropped in line with the games series' rebranding. A new development for Ultimate Team in EA Sports FC 24 was the addition of Evolutions, a mode that allows gamers to improve certain player cards for use in Ultimate Team, giving stats boosts and new PlayStyles. Women's footballers were included in Ultimate Team for the first time, with gamers able to use both men and women in the same team: the release roster had Alexia Putellas, Erling Haaland, Kevin De Bruyne and Kylian Mbappé tied for the highest overall rating at 91.

Similarly, ICONs (usable cards for retired footballers, depicting their rating at their peak) and HERO (usable cards for retired footballers and/or depicting special moments, with comic book art styles created by Marvel) included women's footballers for the first time, with the initial five ICONs being Mia Hamm, Birgit Prinz, Homare Sawa, Camille Abily and Kelly Smith. The men's ICONs at release were Zico, Bobby Charlton and Franck Ribéry. The first three women's Heroes were Nadine Keßler, Sonia Bompastor and Alex Scott (who also appears in the game series as a broadcaster). There were two Teams of the Year for the first time, with the addition of a Women's Team of the Year for gamers and fans to vote on, in addition to the Men's Team of the Year. After the 4-3-3 Teams of the Year were revealed, gamers also voted for a 12th player for both teams from the remaining nominees.

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