EA Sports activities and Unusual have dropped a spectacular new launch movie for FC 26, and it is inflicting a whole lot of pleasure worldwide. The 2-and-a-half-minute spot is a fever dream of soccer, fandom, and pure chaos.
Titled The Membership Is Yours, the long-form trailer stars a line-up that is as star-studded because it will get: Jude Bellingham, Zlatan Ibrahimovic, Virgil van Dijk, Lewis Hamilton, and Alyssa Thompson, alongside shock cameos from Oliver Kahn, Toni Kroos, and Cole Palmer. It is like soccer’s personal Avengers assembled, after which unleashed.
Reasonably than the same old shiny montage, the trailer turns fan suggestions into full-blown spectacle. EA and Unusual trawled by way of hundreds of neighborhood concepts, from intelligent gameplay tweaks to utterly unhinged ideas, and introduced them to life.
So we see polar bears charging throughout the pitch, a 45-foot objective for Van Dijk, Bellingham’s strike hit by lightning, a huge Oliver Kahn smashing by way of a wall, and Zlatan scoring from exterior the stadium. It is wild, humorous, and surprisingly transferring… a nod to the creativeness that is all the time fuelled this common franchise.
Director Gary Freedman (the Cannes-winning filmmaker behind Paddington Meets the Queen) steers the mayhem with cinematic swagger, backed by Framestore’s VFX magic, modifying by Work Editors, and sound by 750. The end result blurs the road between developer and participant, creativeness and sport engine.
The movie marks the beginning of EA Sports activities FC 26’s greatest marketing campaign but. Greater than 50 short-form movies are rolling out throughout social and TV, with stars together with Alex Morgan, Jamal Musiala, Endrick, Manuel Neuer, Skepta, and Offended Ginge.
It is all constructed round a easy however highly effective fact: followers do not simply play the sport; they form it.
“FC 26 is a celebration of our neighborhood,” stated Charlie Villiers, senior director of selling at EA Sports activities FC. “This yr we listened deeply, challenged the established order and backed up our phrases with motion. The Membership Is Yours allowed us to seize the facility of the neighborhood and create a platform that connects our followers, their creativity and the power that fuels this sport.”
Nils Leonard, co-founder of Unusual, added: “Greater than only a trailer, this movie is a tribute to soccer tradition – spanning the artistry of worldwide icons, the desires of the following era and the roar of the stadium.”
Earlier teasers revealed Bellingham and Musiala as FC 26’s new cowl stars, with Zlatan Ibrahimovic fronting the Final Version, recreating a childhood photograph of him gazing at his hero Ronaldo. Followers even impressed a particular in-game mode the place you possibly can area a complete workforce of Zlatans (due to course they did).
This sense of play carries by way of all the marketing campaign. What if each fan thought got here true? The Membership Is Yours dares to search out out – and the result’s complete, stunning anarchy.
Past the movie, FC 26 introduces one of the crucial community-driven gameplay experiences but, with new options born straight from fan suggestions. By means of the FC Suggestions Hub, gamers can share concepts, report points, and form future updates, turning a once-passive viewers into energetic collaborators.
EA Sports activities calls it “a mission at hand soccer again to the followers”. And that is precisely how this marketing campaign feels. Throughout broadcast, social, and OOH, FC 26 reveals up as a tribute to everybody who loves, critiques, and desires in regards to the stunning sport.
