EA Sports flies Freestyle

While EA Sports is undoubtedly best known for its sim franchises, including Madden NFL, FIFA, NBA Live, and Fight Night, the publishing label is no stranger to the arcade arena, either. For years, EA Sports has been playing fast and loose with realism in games, offering a range of products that include FIFA Street, NFL Tour, and SSX.

While many of these less-than-lifelike games have previously fallen under the EA Sports Big label, the publisher said today it would be rebranding its efforts as EA Sports Freestyle. According to EA, games that will fall under this label will be "playful, inclusive, casual, and easy to pick up and play for kids and parents, women and men, and casual and hardcore sports fans of all ages."

EA Sports told GameSpot that with the introduction of Freestyle, its Big brand has become defunct. "We'll no longer ship games under the EA Sports Big brand, which was more narrowly focused on extreme sports and arcade-style experiences targeted to teens and young adults," an EA rep told GameSpot. "EA Sports Freestyle games are designed to appeal to a much broader audience with more diverse gameplay experiences."

The first game to fall under the new EA Sports Freestyle moniker will be FaceBreaker, which EA said today would weigh in on the Xbox 360, PlayStation 3, and Wii in September. The publisher also noted that the two original projects mentioned in March would fall under the Freestyle label and would see release within the next 12 months.