Growing up I absolutely loved playing video games and honestly I still do to this day. I used to love sitting and playing FIFA or Club Football : Manchester United 2005 and I would put hours into those games after school and football training, these days I am on FIFA most days either building my ultimate team or progressing through my career. Something that always bugged me though was that if I wanted to create a character it had to be a male one as there was no sign of any female players within the games I loved to play, this got more and more annoying as I got older and the women's game was growing as it just felt like the women weren't getting the representation they truly deserved. 

Things started to change though in FIFA 16 as after the success of the Women's World Cup in 2015 we were finally given some female players and teams and although it wasn't a lot it was still a start. We were limited to the bigger players having their faces scanned although a few of these are definitely still questionable and there were only those bigger teams included within the game. You could also only play in kick off, tournament mode or friendlies but I guess 3 modes is a start. In 2018 we were then introduced to Kim Hunter in the Journey story mode as the sister of Alex Hunter who you followed through part of his career, in 2019 though The Journey focused on Kim Hunter and her aim to play for the USWNT in the 2019 World Cup, this was great to play through but once it was done it was back to those same 3 modes for game play with the limited teams or street football mode Volta if that is what you fancied. Fast forward a few years and we might finally be seeing more progress of women coming to the FIFA games a bit more which is great to see at last but is it going to continue to grow or are we going to have to settle for just these few additions for the next few years ?

One of the new additions is the ability to play as a female player in Pro Clubs, now I don't play Pro Clubs for any female that does it is definitely a great addition. In this you can create and customise a female pro player to be used in the online 11 vs 11 game mode which also means for the first time ever you can play as part of a mixed team. It is going to be interesting to see if this is just a step forward to introducing females into more modes on the game. 

Possibly one of the biggest additions to FIFA 22 has been women's footballing legend Alex Scott coming into the game as a pitch side reporter in FIFA 22's career mode, coming into the game to replace Alan McNally is a really big step for the game and they have picked a great woman to start with and hopefully we will see a lot more over the next few years as we see more and more females commentating on the TV and radio lately. Alex Scott is one of my favourite commentators at the moment and I think she talks a lot of sense and it is nice to see her making history as the first female reporting voice in the game and this move has been one that has had a lot of positive reactions from those who play the game and those who want more female representation. It would be great if a few years down the line we could chose between either female or male commentators in the game. 

There are definitely a lot of fans of the women's game that are calling out for various leagues to be added to the game such as the NWSL, FA Women's Super League and many more from around the world. With a lot of international players now already in the game surely it is about time they introduced a few leagues to start with whilst working on getting more and more leagues at all levels added as the game grows internationally. FIFA have alienated a fan base for a long time but at least now we are finally getting to see the fan base slowly being included in the game. 

Obviously FIFA isn't the only big football video game out there as there is also Football Manager who said in 2021 they were working on adding a women's database to their game which I am looking forward to seeing and I will be doing a whole new post on that in the future as more details come out about it and I have looked into it a bit more so keep checking back for that post. It is just nice to see that slowly but surely the female games is getting a bit more recognition and the game is definitely growing off the pitch with a global game like FIFA finally adding more female representation to its games. I can't wait to see how the representation increases over the next few years as the women's game continues to grow. 

Are you glad women are finally been added to video games?