FIFA 22: FUT Heroes explained

One of the new features coming to FIFA 22 is the intriguing addition of FUT Heroes to Ultimate Team. These new cards represent a potentially major change to how players will build their squads in the future, but how exactly do they work?

What are FUT Heroes?

To understand FUT Heroes, you first need to know how both chemistry and Icons work. In Ultimate Team, chemistry is a measure of how connected your team is. That means linking players from the same league or nation together increases your chemistry. And, if you link together players with the same league and nation, that link becomes even stronger, giving you more chemistry. However, players from other leagues won’t link to each other, forcing you into interesting squad-building decisions.

Icons, on the other hand, link to everyone in the game. This makes them very valuable outside of just their incredible stats. They let you link together teams from different leagues, meaning you can pick and choose the best players in the world.

FUT Heroes moves the concept forward by taking a step back. These players of old are heroes from a specific league. So, that means they will only link with players from that league (and their countrymen, of course). That’s a step down from Icons but presents EA with some interesting options. Because these cards aren’t as valuable as Icons, they’ll be easier for EA to dole out to players. It also could mean Icon players could get Heroes cards to give access to some of the best players in the sport’s history to everyone.

We’ve seen this happen this year, actually. When David Beckham’s Icon card was added mid-way through FIFA 21, EA gave everyone a version of Beckham that played at Real Madrid. That kind of flexibility could be where EA is trying to go with these Hero players.

Who is FUT Hero?

For now, we only know a few of the FUT Heroes. More will be revealed over the next few months. However, we already have players from each of the five major leagues and players from LIGA MX, the Saudi Pro League, and MLS. Hopefully, we continue to see that kind of diversity in the future. Here are all nine of the players revealed thus far:

• Mario Gomez – Bundesliga
• Tim Cahill – Premier League
• Diego Milito – Serie A
• Jorge Campos – Liga MX
• Fernando Morientes – LaLiga
• Sami Al-Jaber – Saudi Pro League
• Robbie Keane – Premier League
• Abedi Pele – Ligue 1
• Clint Dempsey – MLS

There are also rumors of several other players that might be included as FUT Heroes. Those include names like Ivan Cordoba, Aleksandr Mostovoi, Joe Cole, and Ole Gunnar Solskjaer. Make sure to check back in August when EA reveals even more names.