Various FIFA 23 FUT Centurions player items, including Zlatan Ibrahimovic, appear to have been nerfed by EA Sports ahead of the TOTY promo release.
The FIFA 23 FUT Centurions promo featured the release of two promo squads, with Team 2 containing a special player item for players like Ibrahimovic, Mohamed Salah, Fred and others, whilst Team 1 featured the likes of Neymar Jnr, Trent Alexander-Arnold and Fred. The FUT Centurions event is set to end later tomorrow, with the highly anticipated TOTY promo (Team of the Year) set to launch on Friday, January 20 at 6pm GMT/ 1pm ET/ 10am PT, after the TOTY public vote closed on Tuesday.
But ahead of the Ultimate TOTY squad being unveiled, various social media users have reported that Ibrahimovic’s FUT Centurions item, along with others, have been changed retrospectively, with some of the individual attributes being reduced. Twitter user @BeSoccerTeam was among the first to notice the changes, and they can be seen in the tweet below.
According to screenshots on social media, it appears that Ibrahimovic’s FUT Centurions 90-rated player item has received the following individual attribute downgrades and upgrades, following an in-game update:
- Stamina – 85 to 61
- Jumping – 92 to 99
- Strength – 93 to 99
- Aggression – 88 to 99
- Balance – 82 to 58
- Agility – 85 to 76
- Reactions – 88 to 87
Twitter user @DonkTrading has also tweeted that Ibrahimovic’s FUT Centurions item has lost around 700,000 coins in value on the FUT 23 transfer market. Player item values fluctuate overnight, but typically not by that huge amount, suggesting that the nerf might have something to do with the drop in value.
FIFA Ultimate Team players have long suspected that EA Sports nerf special player items a few weeks after they’re released, including promo items, SBC players and objective reward players, so is this the evidence to prove this theory?
Mirror Gaming has contacted EA Sports for a response to this story. But, as we wait for comment, let’s look at some of the various explanations about what could have happened. Firstly, the attributes that were given to the cards when they were first released could have been incorrect initially, and EA is simply updating them, or it could be a purely visual issue, with no impact on in-game performance.
Either way, it looks pretty shady right now. There would be outrage within the FIFA community if it turns out that EA Sports actually did manually nerf these special player items, after scores of FUT players have spent time and –let’s face it – money, to try and obtain these cards with the stats advertised, only for themto be made worse after the fact.
We’ll be constantly updating this story with any further information that comes to light, including any response from EA Sports.
