The transition to full teams playing each other came to Madden first and then FIFA.
EA Sports FC (formerly FIFA) is one of the biggest video game series in the world. Every year we can expect new chapters that sell tens of millions of copies but it wasn’t always EA’s global behemoth. Back when sports games were still developing into how we perceive them today, one of the big innovations came to Madden NFL first and saw how the series introduced full team action, meaning instead of a smaller-scale match, it became 11-on-11 gameplay.
Speaking about this change and how it creeped into the FIFA/EA Sports FC we know today, Gordon Bellamy, who is best known for his time working on EA Sports games, recently spoke with Gamereactor at San Diego Comic Con Malaga, where he explained the following.
“Yeah, well, it’s funny, like having Madden as a license sort of implied that depth. So one of the biggest things with Madden originally was that [John Madden] demanded the game be 11-on-11.
