In a surprise announcement, Netflix has signed an agreement for a new Fifa video game to be launched ahead of the upcoming World Cup. The game, “a new reimagined Fifa soccer simulation,” will be available “exclusively” on Netflix: subscribers will be able to play it at no additional cost on smartphones, tablets, and smart TVs connected to the Internet.
This is the first high-profile agreement between the federation led by Gianni Infantino and a video game developer since the break with EA Sports, which was made official in 2022 after a thirty-year partnership. The new FIFA will be launched in the summer to take full advantage of the 2026 World Cup and will be developed by the relatively unknown Californian studio Delphi Interactive.
The joint Netflix-FIFA press release presents it as “quick to learn, engaging to master, and built for everyone.” It will be possible to play alone and with friends online, and the goal is for users to experience “the excitement and drama of the tournament,” i.e., the upcoming World Cup, with which it promises a strong connection, “in its purest and most joyful form.” Further details will be released in 2026. “The World Cup will be the cultural event of 2026, and now fans will be able to celebrate their fandom by bringing the game straight into their living rooms,” explained Alain Tascan, head of Netflix Games. “We want to bring soccer back to basics with something everyone can play at the touch of a button.” Infantino added that the federation is “very excited to be working with Netflix Games and Delphi Interactive ahead of the 2026 World Cup. This important collaboration is a key milestone in FIFA’s commitment to innovation in the football gaming space, which aims to reach billions of football fans of all ages, in all parts of the world, and will redefine the very notion of simulation games. It will be available free to Netflix subscribers and is a huge milestone for FIFA.”

The future—  At the height of a 30-year partnership, EA Sports had set a rather difficult standard to achieve. The task of trying to do so has been entrusted to Delphi Interactive, a new name even for video game experts. This is a relatively new development team, founded by Casper Alexander Daugaard and former Zynga (Farmville) executive Andy Kleinmann. We are talking about its debut work, although it has collaborated with Denmark’s IO Interactive on the upcoming James Bond video game, 007: First Light. The official website explains that Delphi Interactive wants to “redefine the way triple-A games (high budget, ed.) are made” and that it considers itself “the company that is leading the return of the beloved FIFA simulation game.” The notion of “simulation game” is very important, because it is the same category that the old FIFA fell into, the same as the new FC, and the same one in which the international federation did not want exclusive ties with EA Sports (it was one of the issues that led to the divorce). “Delphi is intentionally agile, fast, and uncompromising on quality. We believe that exceptional games are built by exceptional people with strong creative instincts, clear ownership, and the freedom to pursue extremely bold ideas,” concludes the description on the website, while founder and CEO Daugaard, in a statement released yesterday evening, explicitly talks about “a new generation and reimagining the future of the franchise,” as if it were a direct continuation of the previous series, which ended with FIFA 23 in 2022. “Our mission is simple: to make FIFA the most fun, accessible, and global soccer game ever created (…), a game that anyone, anywhere, can pick up and instantly feel the magic of soccer.”

The legacy of EA Sports—FIFA hasn’t exactly been sitting idle since its split from Electronic Arts three years ago, although its partnership with Netflix marks its return to players’ TV screens (as well as iOS and Android) for the first time. The very first initiatives were quite improvised and controversial, linked to the world of Web3, NFTs, and the metaverse: AI League, Upland, Matchday Challenge, and Phygtl are just a few of the names that probably mean nothing to you, but which ended up embroiled in the quarrel between the two disputants. They did not leave their mark, not only because of the quality of the experience, but mainly because they were mini-games and initiatives connected to the World Cup in Qatar, and therefore linked to a very limited time frame. Slightly more serious was the effort on FIFA Rivals, launched in 2025 on mobile by Mythical Games (NFL Rivals) and based on roughly the same concept as Ultimate Team: squad-building and PvP, i.e., online matches against other users. The subject of some debate (not much: the title seems to have disappeared from the radar) was the Mythical Marketplace, a blockchain store where players could buy and sell game items. The latest, FIFA Heroes, will be released in 2026 and will be based on 5-on-5 matches, in which we will guide World Cup mascots, soccer icons, and characters from TV series and movies. The gameplay in this case will be arcade-style, with fantasy moves closer to Captain Tsubasa than to the real world, although the platforms will be traditional: consoles, PCs, and smartphones. It is striking once again that the federation has approached names that are relatively unknown in the gaming world: publisher Solace and New York-based developer Enver.
The question everyone has been asking for the past few hours: since when does Netflix make video games? Although few have noticed, from 2021 to 2024, the American streamer has invested $1 billion in gaming and has 90 games in development, 10 of which are in-house. It has four development studios, two in Finland, including the well-known team behind the cult teen horror series Oxenfree. After a series of adjustments, the American company is now focusing on two areas: social gaming, with simple and fast applications that allow you to spend an evening with friends in front of the TV, and large external productions obtained (if possible) exclusively, to be downloaded separately on your mobile phone. Following this logic, Netflix has acquired the WWE 2K wrestling series in smartphone version for the next few years, and has snapped up classics such as the original GTA trilogy and Red Dead Redemption. And its output could increase if the acquisition of Warner Bros. goes through: over the years, that powerhouse has produced great games, from Batman Arkham to Hogwarts Legacy. After some disappointing initial figures, the strategy is beginning to bear fruit: according to Appfigures data, between January-October 2024 and January-October 2025, the number of video game downloads via Netflix is expected to increase by 17% to 74.8 million. Not quite the figures achieved by EA Sports FC 26, which sold over 12 million copies at full price in October—the standard edition costs $80, the more appealing Ultimate edition $110, not counting FUT microtransactions—but undoubtedly an interesting basis on which to try to (re)build the future of FIFA.