EA's FIFA 22 Next-Gen Upgrade Is Borderline-Insulting

The recent reveal of FIFA 22 might be exciting for a lot of gamers out there, but the process of upgrading the game between generations is anything but. Many publishers offer next-gen upgrades for their games, meaning that if you buy it on a last-gen console – PS4 or Xbox One – you can upgrade it to the current-gen version – Xbox Series X|S or PS5 – when you get one of those consoles. Many of these upgrades are free, but in the case of FIFA 22, it's going to cost you.FIFA publisher Electronic Arts refers to next-gen upgrades as "Dual Entitlement," and it has set up an entire FAQ about how it works in FIFA 22. In it, we learn that while FIFA 22 will offer Dual Entitlement, only the game's Ultimate Edition will let you upgrade between generations. Purchase any other edition on PS4 or Xbox One, and you'll have to pay again for the Xbox Series X|S or PlayStation 5 version later.

"Dual Entitlement is only available with the purchase of the FIFA 22 Ultimate Edition. The Standard Edition of FIFA 22 does not include Dual Entitlement," Electronic Arts writes. "That means if you purchase FIFA 22 Standard Edition on PS4 and upgrade to PS5 later, you would need to purchase the PS5 version of the game to play."

FIFA 22 Ultimate Edition runs $99.99 on both PS4 and Xbox One, so if one of those consoles is all you've got for now but you're planning to upgrade to a PS5 or Xbox Series X in the future, you're spending $100 at minimum to make sure FIFA 22 makes the cross-generational jump with you.

While some publishers have decided to charge a fee to upgrade between generations, EA's is definitely one of the most egregious we've seen. Here's hoping the company has a change of heart before FIFA 22 lands on October 1st, but since this is Electronic Arts we're talking about, we're not particularly confident that it will.