Game publisher Electronic Arts (EA) has announced that the upcoming soccer simulation title "FIFA 16" will include all-female professional teams.
This marks the first time in the series' 22-year history that gamers can choose female players as playable characters.
According to EA's announcement through its website, female teams from 12 countries will be featured in the game. These include Mexico, Italy, Germany, USA, France, England, Sweden, Canada, Brazil, Australia, Spain and China.
However, the game publisher noted that gamers can only choose female teams to compete against other teams of the same gender.
Although the first installment of the "FIFA" series was introduced way back in 1993, it took game developer EA Sports more than 20 years before it was finally able to diversify its playable characters.
But according to David Rutters, senior vice president and general manager of the game series, EA Sports was already considering including women's teams in previous installments of the franchise.
However, the studio was not able to do so due to technical limitations.
"It's been in the pipeline for a few years, and really it was just a case of making sure that the game was in a good enough state for it to work properly," he told The Guardian.
"We needed to have the tools and technology in place that could differentiate between men and women," the executive added. "Plus, we had to factor in the time and effort required for travelling around the world to scan faces and heads, record motion capture, etc. It's been on the to-do list for a while."
Fortunately, thanks to the game's new 3D player modeling system and enhanced visual animations, gamer will now be able to see their favorite athletes such as England's Stephanie Houghton, USA's Alex Morgan and Canada's Christine Sinclair take on the virtual soccer field.
"FIFA 16" is scheduled to be released on September 22 in North America. It will be available for the Microsoft Windows, Xbox 360, Xbox One, PlayStation 3 and PlayStation 4 platforms.
