We are just a few weeks from the start of the FIFA World Cup 2022 in Qatar, and EA Sports FIFA has shared with us how they plan to bring the World Cup to FIFA 23 over the next month.
Starting from Wednesday, November 9, you will be able to enjoy the World Cup experience in multiple game modes, with various ways to play and compete using players from the 32 teams that qualified for the tournament.
In what game modes does the World Cup feature?
FIFA World Cup content will feature in both Kick Off and in FIFA Ultimate Team.
World Cup Kick-Off gives you the chance to play against friends or against the CPU AI with any national team available in FIFA 23. There will also be offline and online Tournaments where you can recreate the World Cup journey with any national team in the game. You will also be able to play in a mode called Your FIFA World Cup, where you can take real-world matches into your own hands as the qualified nations make their way through the tournament.
More details about the different Kick-Off game modes can be found here.
Is there a World Cup Mode in FUT?
Unlike in previous years, when the World Cup was a standalone mode during the summer, this year’s World Cup experience will be intertwined with Ultimate Team. However, there will not be a dedicated World Cup Mode within FUT.
Instead, there will be multiple campaigns running across the entirety of the tournament, featuring World Cup Player Items, World Cup Swaps, and World Cup Heroes, that will follow the excitement of the tournament as it unfolds on the pitch, as well as celebrate special moments and performances from this year’s competition and those from the past.
You can find out more about the Mode that is coming here.
FIFA World Cup Campaigns
Although specific details for each of the World Cup campaigns have yet to be revealed, we can expect to see World Cup content come to FUT starting from when Season 2 begins on Friday, November 11, 2022, up until Friday, December 23, 2022.
There's likely to be a Path to Glory promo before the tournament begins on Sunday, November 20, 2022, featuring players who will be hoping to be picked for the respective national team squad for the World Cup. Then there'll be a Road to the World Cup campaign, which will mimic the Road to the Final Items from previous years where the Items will upgrade each time the players' nation advances through the tournament. Then once the tournament is over, we should see special Items released to commemorate the best-performing players at the World Cup.
The official designs for the Items can be seen in the image below.
Alongside this, there will also be special World Cup Player Items for each of the players selected for the respective national squads, which will be in Packs for the duration of the tournament. More details about these Items, and about World Cup Player Items and Swaps, can be found further down in the article.
There will also be special World Cup ICONs coming during the World Cup. EA hasn't revealed which of the ICONs in FIFA 23 will be getting them yet, so keep your eyes on our Twitter and Instagram pages to see who they are once they're revealed.
FIFA World Cup Heroes
Alongside the World Cup campaigns, we'll also see the release of the FIFA World Cup Heroes which were revealed back in the Summer, on Friday, November 11, 2022.
FIFA World Cup Heroes are improved versions of select FUT Heroes, celebrating a key contribution they made in past FIFA World Cup tournaments, and, for the first time in the history of FUT, all FIFA World Cup Heroes will have unique Marvel-illustrated Images instead of real-life Dynamic Images.
The FIFA World Cup Heroes will be available in Packs across two Team Releases starting from November 11 and will replace their Base FUT Hero version while they're in Packs, but some FIFA World Cup Heroes may only be available as Player SBCs or Objective rewards. More details on the availability of World Cup FUT Heroes will be announced soon.
If you pre-ordered the FIFA 23 Ultimate Edition by August 21, you will receive your untradeable FIFA World Cup FUT 23 Hero from Friday, November 11, 2022. The Item you pack will be one of the 21 FIFA World Cup Heroes that are new to FIFA 23, regardless of which Team Release they feature in.
FIFA World Cup Player Items
Within FUT, players selected in the 32 qualified national team Squads will receive a special, limited-time FIFA World Cup Player Item starting from Friday, November 11 when Season 2 begins. Initially, the players will be a mixture of players that participated in their respective nations’ qualification matches for the tournament, and the players selected in their nation’s official Squad for the World Cup.
You can earn your first squad of FIFA World Cup Player Items in the FIFA World Cup Starter Pack, which you earn when you first log in. You will also find these Player Items inside select Packs earned via rewards, SBCs, as well as in Packs in the Store, alongside their regular Items, meaning Packs will contain their usual content as well as the World Cup Player Items during Season 2 until December 23.
These FIFA World Cup Items are time-limited content that expire on Wednesday, January 4, 2023, and will be removed from your Club from that date. These Items are the ONLY Items that will expire at the end of the campaign - the other special Player Items you can pack and unlock are permanent and will stay in your Club for the rest of FIFA 23.
You’re probably wondering, “what’s the point of having these Items if we just lose them within a month?”, well, collecting these Items contributes towards End of Event Rewards, and the more you collect the better the rewards will be, as discussed below.
You will also be using them to unlock FIFA World Cup Swaps Tokens.
FIFA World Cup Swaps
FIFA World Cup Swaps will launch on Friday, November 11, 2022. Similar to ICON Swaps, you will be able to unlock FIFA World Cup Swaps Tokens that you’ll be able to redeem for Packs and special Player Items.
Most of the Swap Tokens will be attainable in Offline and Online Objectives that you complete using FIFA World Cup Player Items. You will also earn a token when you first log in from Friday, November 11 to December 23, 2022.
A permanently upgraded FIFA World Cup Star Player Item from each of the 32 nations at the FIFA World Cup will be available to redeem as part of FIFA World Cup Swaps rewards within SBCs, and more details regarding other available rewards will be announced at a later date.
FIFA World Cup End of Event Rewards
As mentioned previously, collecting FIFA World Cup Items contributes towards earning End of Event Rewards.
There are 10 Reward Levels to progress through as you earn more FIFA World Cup Player Items over the course of the Season. As you collect more Items and complete each level, you can unlock more rewards. If you complete all 10 Levels, you qualify for all of the available rewards, which include Packs and Player Picks.
You can track the number of FIFA World Cup Items you earn in the FUT Main Menu on the new FIFA World Cup tile, which will appear in-game from November 11. The tile will also track Duplicate FIFA World Cup Items you’ve obtained.
The End of Event Rewards will be redeemable starting January 4, coinciding with when the FIFA World Cup Player Items expire and start being removed from your club. Full details of what the specific rewards are will be released soon.
World Cup Cosmetics
Everyone will be able to show their support for their respective country with authentic national team kits and customisation options for your FUT Stadium which will be added to seamlessly integrate the World Cup experience into FIFA Ultimate Team.
Are you looking forward to the World Cup content coming to FUT in the coming weeks? And who do you think will win the World Cup?