Forget about Sochi and winter-based sports. It’s a World Cup year.
Publisher Electronic Arts announced this morning that it will release a new standalone soccer game to celebrate the upcoming FIFA World Cup event in Brazil. On April 15, EA Sports will release 2014 FIFA World Cup Brazil for Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3. The company is not making a version of the European football simulation for PlayStation 4, Xbox One, or PC.
By focusing development of the game on last-gen consoles, EA Sports says it can get the game to as many people as possible with the resources it currently has. The publisher only just released the critically acclaimed FIFA 14 for Xbox 360, PlayStation 3, and PC in September. The game then hit the Xbox One and PlayStation 4 systems when they launched in November.
The quick turnaround, as it has in the past, will likely mean that 2014 FIFA World Cup Brazil is essentially the same game as FIFA 14 with a new, World Cup-focused presentation. EA Sports has released a standalone version of FIFA for every World Cup since 1998. It has even done the same for the UEFA Euro tournaments, which is the biggest competition for club teams in Europe, since 2000.
The World Cup starts on June 12 and runs through July 13 in Brazil. It’s the second time that Brazil is hosting Earth’s largest soccer competition, which pits the national teams of the world against one another.