FIFA just launched a mobile game called World Cup AI League, a soccer strategy game played between AI-controlled characters, where players participate in the fun and tactical moments. A Web3 company Altered State Machine made the game, which is now available on Android and will soon be available on iOS. Interestingly, the game is branded with the 2022 men’s World Cup in Qatar 2022, instead of the 2023 women’s World Cup in Australia and New Zealand, which begins this summer.

FIFA World Cup AI League doesn’t have famous soccer stars like Ronaldo or Messi, instead it has cartoonish, brightly-coloured creatures. Their movements, and also strengths and weaknesses are controlled by AI. Players take on the roles of team coaches and owners, and the game’s current maps are based on places like Paris and Seoul. AI League is currently a free-to-play game, but an Altered State the game will soon have an NFT marketplace. The characters will be minted into NFTs and represented via NFTs further on.

Since the official launch, the app has been downloaded from Google Play 10 000+ times, however, the current version is quite heavy — it has a download size of 107 MB. Could be a hiccup, but hasn’t stopped users from downloading it so far.

The game has an in-game money that can be used to buy cosmetic upgrades for their characters. However, that currency is not a cryptocurrency because trading in cryptocurrencies is limited due to Apple and Google restrictions. The game developers are holding back the NFTs and cryptocurrency elements as part of the strategy that’s becoming more common in the Web3 space: launching games in a traditional “Web2” form first without NFT or crypto elements — and add them in later.

FIFA is no stranger to the crypto world and as it launched an NFT platform back in December last year. Hopefully, the current move means that they are fully ready to dive into the Web3 gaming world. We continue to observe.