Sean draws on his wealth of football and gaming knowledge to provide the definitive FIFA list
Electronic Art’s FIFA series has been an absolute juggernaut in the world of football videogames since its inception, drawing in both dedicated and casual fans of the most beautiful game. Players all over the world take great joy in playing as their favourite teams, creating their own squads of famous players, and trying to get one up on their mates from work. I enjoy none of that, since I am not a football fan at all. Sport just isn’t my bag, but given how wide-reaching and popular it is, it must be doing something right! (paying money for the FIFA license and slightly updating grass textures, that’s pretty much it — Dave the Editor)
The FIFA series has been running for nearly 30 years by now, and with the final entry in the FIFA series drawing near, I thought it would be fun to pay tribute to the enduring franchise in the best way I can think of: ranking the covers. In this list I am going to rank every main FIFA entry’s cover from worst to best, all games judged entirely on the visuals of the box art. I can count the number of football players I can recognize and name on one, heavily mutilated hand, so please don’t be offended if I describe a luminary in the sport as ‘that dude with a mullet’ or something. It’s worth noting that some FIFA games have varying covers depending on their release region or edition, so for the purposes of this list I simply picked the default ones (I think.)
So without further ado, lets kick off!
29: FIFA 21
Coming in at bottom of the league is FIFA 21, which features what seems to be a Microsoft Paint canvas of randomly pasted JPEGS of this man in various emotional phases. Perhaps it was an employee’s mood board for personal use, that was then mistakenly emailed to the marketing department rather than the real intended cover? We may never know. I do quite like the cryptic text on the left, though. It brings an aura of mystery to the whole affair.
28: FIFA 22
It’s just a portrait of a man looking off at something in the distance. What’s he looking at? What does this have to do with football? You could tell me that this was the cover of a game about hiking or meditation at sunset and I could believe you. This cover tells me nothing about the game, nor does it inspire me to become a football legend. I almost fell asleep just looking at it.
27: FIFA 12
Expect to see a lot of photos of Wayne Rooney screaming on this list, it becomes a bit of a running theme. This one ranks as the worst of the bunch, sadly, since there’s just not a lot going on. Maybe it’s just the emotional contrast between the two players since the fellow on the right seems completely unperturbed by Rooney’s cry of joy. There’s just a bit of an emotional disconnect, y’know? I’m not really feeling it.
