EA has unveiled the cover art for the Ultimate Edition of FIFA 23, and it’s particularly notable for featuring both a male and female athlete together for the first time. Kylian Mbappé and Sam Kerr sit side-by-side on the Ultimate Edition cover, a cover that will be used around the world.
Beyond the Ultimate Edition, it’s also been confirmed (as of Tuesday morning) that while Kylian Mbappé will be the worldwide cover star for the standard edition of the game, Sam Kerr will be the standard edition star for Australia and New Zealand, and as an Amazon exclusive in other countries.
FIFA 23 will be the final EA football game to feature the FIFA branding, as they failed to find common ground when decided whether or not to extend their 30-year-long licensing agreement. From 2023 EA’s football games will be called EA Sports FC, while FIFA will be licensing their brand to other developers, and insist that the FIFA branded games will be “THE BEST”.
However, the two will still work together one final time for FIFA 23, which is set to be one of the most significant games in the series. For one thing, it will be the first time that not one, but two World Cups are taking place within the same calendar year, and FIFA 23 will represent both the men’s FIFA World Cup that will take place in Qatar this winter, as well as the women’s FIFA World Cup which takes place in Austalia and New Zealand in the summer of 2023.
With that in mind, it makes perfect sense to see the two footballing stars that are gracing the FIFA 23 cover art. Now one of the biggest names in football, Kylian Mbappé will be on the cover for the third year in a row, and he’s a World Cup winner with France from the 2018 edition of the tournament. Sam Kerr is similarly one of the biggest stars of women’s football, winning the Women’s Super League with Chelsea for the last three years in a row, grabbing the golden boot for her two full seasons with the team – she’s the only female player to win the golden boot in three different leagues and on three different continents – and being voted as the FWA Women’s Footballer of the Year for 2022. She’s led the attack for the Austalia women’s national team since 2010, and with the women’s World Cup heading down under next year, she’s a perfect fit for the cover.
Kerr will not be the first star of the women’s game to be on a FIFA cover – with FIFA 16’s addition to female athletes and national teams, Alex Morgan featured on the US cover and Christine Sinclair in Canada – but she will be the first to feature worldwide on this Ultimate Edition cover.
FIFA 23 will be out later this year, with a release date yet to be confirmed for the game – though we can guess that it’ll the end of September or start of October, as usual. The game is coming to PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X|S, PlayStation 4, Xbox One, PC and Stadia. The Switch will probably be lumped with a so-called Legacy Edition.
Source: press release
Tuesday 19th July – Updated with details of the standard edition covers.
