FIFA Online coming to Europe in June

Electronic Arts has announced that it will be rolling out the free to play football game FIFA Online across the world later this year, with the game scheduled to hit Europe in June 2010.

FIFA Online is EA's free multiplayer football - or 'soccer', if you must - game that mixes RPG aspects with the usual sporty mechanics. It actually launched a while ago, but until now it's only been available in some Asian countries.

While the game is technically free for all players, EA is hoping to profit from the game by means of microtransactions - selling extra kit to players that either allow customisation or allow small advantages over non-paying players. It's the same system that was used in EA's free to play shooter Battlefield Heroes and we didn't particularly like it back then.

EA has recently changed the prices of items in Battlefield Heroes too, sparking protests that the balance has shifted to heavily favour paying customers, according to ShackNews.

The initial June release of FIFA Online will be an English-only beta, but EA says that other European languages and an American client will be rolled out within two years - an unusually long wait.

A closed beta of the game will kick off later this week and you can sign up for it over at the official FIFA Online site.

Let us know what you think of free to play multiplayer games in the forums.