The Electronic Arts gaming company (i.e. EA) has for long had games coveted and played by many gamers across the world. Africa is not exempt in these cases, and their inclusion has been long sought for for a while now. In the year 2021, upon their yearly evaluation, an inclusion was made by EA, as there were a number of eligible countries to contest for the FIFA (now EA Sports FC) Global Series. This included Ghana, Kenya, and Nigeria as the only African countries to contest in the Series alongside Serbia, Honduras, and a number of other countries that made the cut to play in the Series.
The word on servers came up in 2018, for the game Battlefield, and that was for their communities in South Africa, Hong Kong and the Middle East. These servers were to be made available for Xbox One, PlayStation 4 and PC to allow for lower latency should they play online.
According to an announcement made by Gamr Africa on July 14, 2023, EA Sports FIFA server was said to be made available in Lagos, Nigeria. This was after players from Ghana and Nigeria tweeted about massive ping decreases experienced in online modes. Reports from EA also show that they plan to include it on their upcoming EA Sports FC 24.
A confirmation message by willian10 is currently on the website Nairaland, with him making it known that it is available for console and for the games FIFA23, Battlefield, NFL, Apex Legends and NFL, which can be played with low latency and also have players host their games on servers close to them.
Now this is not an official move by EA, however, this expansion will mean a lot for West Africa including resident players from Nigeria, Ghana and Senegal, making it a giant step after making servers available for South Africa for the past five years.
Photo credit: The Exchange
This inclusion could also mean a possible expansion for North African players as well, since they have had to for the most part do bootcamp with the Middle East to play in the online tournaments.
A local server means there will be probable instances of online and offline tournaments hosted by neighboring countries in West Africa and a significant increase in the esports communities existing in these countries, continuing the progress and growth in esports that players, audience and enthusiasts want to see.
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Written By Jeffrey Osei-Agyeman
