FIFA 23's World Cup update will be seasonal content, not a dedicated mode

An official deep dive video has confirmed that FIFA 23's Ultimate Team will not get a dedicated World Cup mode during the tournament, which begins on November 20th. Starting with Season 2 on November 11th though, the international football competition is being represented in FUT with plenty of seasonal gubbins instead. The World Cup is, of course, also coming to the main game from November 9th in single-player and online Tournament mode. You can watch the FIFA 23 World Cup deep dive video below.

Rumours began circulating earlier today that FUT wouldn’t receive the popular dedicated World Cup mode that it saw in 2014 and 2018, following leaked info from Fut Sheriff on Twitter. Fut Sheriff had reliably leaked promo cards and game modes from FIFA before, and claimed that this World Cup would see time-limited cards that would be removed after the season was over. EA has since confirmed that FUT will feature the World Cup tournament as “a full season of content”, but not as a dedicated mode, and that time-limited cards are part of it.

These time-limited cards are called Player Items, and every one of the soccer lads selected for the qualifying 32 World Cup teams has one. Every FIFA 23 player can nab a starter pack of Player Items by logging in for the first time. EA are also going to be shoving Player Items into reward packs and some store packs until December 23rd, as an extra to what’s usually contained within them. Player Item packs will be obtainable through milestone objectives and squad-building challenges, too, and the cards can be used to complete swap objectives.

Getting more Player Items earns you End Of Event rewards such as packs and player picks, redeemable from January 4th as Player Items expire. The rewards are a bit of a battle pass scenario, with 10 levels to work through. Just to make matters confusing, FUT campaigns running during the World Cup will dole out permanent themed items, so watch out for those. You can read full details of what’s coming to FIFA 23 to coincide with the World Cup here.

FIFA 23 is available on Steam and the Epic Games Store for £60/$70/€70. If you’re looking for tips on FUT then check out Hayden’s regularly updated Ones To Watch tracker.