EA Sports will end its video game partnership with FIFA

One of the video game industry's most iconic franchises will soon look very different.

Electronic Arts and its subsidiary EA Sports will end a three-decade partnership with FIFA — global soccer's governing body — the gaming company announced on Tuesday. Starting next year, the hugely popular FIFA video game franchise will be known as "EA SPORTS FC."

"This new independent platform will bring fresh opportunity -- to innovate, create and evolve," Cam Weber, EVP and group GM for EA Sports & Racing, said in a statement. "EA SPORTS FC will allow us to realize this future and much more ... but not before we deliver our most expansive game ever with our current naming rights partner, FIFA, for one more year," he added.

EA will still retain most of the team and player likenesses that have made its game so popular, thanks to separate license agreements with global soccer leagues in England, Spain, Italy, Germany, the United States and European soccer association UEFA.

Electronic Arts (EA)' stock was essentially flat following the news.

FIFA said in a statement that it had granted EA a one-year extension to release the FIFA 23 video game later this year, which will feature the upcoming men's and women's World Cups that FIFA organizes. But the governing body will now seek to develop new games with "third party studios and publishers" in the next two years and is in talks for a "major new" FIFA game in 2024.

"I can assure you that the only authentic, real game that has the FIFA name will be the best one available for gamers and football fans," FIFA President Gianni Infantino said in the statement. "FIFA 23, FIFA 24, FIFA 25 and FIFA 26, and so on — the constant is the FIFA name and it will remain forever and remain THE BEST."

:story: CNN