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Electronic Arts has confirmed it has pulled two celebrations from FIFA 21 in response to community reports that they were "toxic behaviours".
While EA didn't specify why the two celebrations concerned – the A-OK celebration and the "Shush" celebration – were being removed for the latest instalment of the football franchise, it did confirm that other celebrations could also be at risk of removal if they too encouraged toxicity.
"We were told by the community that there are toxic behaviours in the game and we wanted to make sure we removed them," said EA (thanks, Comic Book). "So we removed some of the celebrations that people thought were not the best idea to have in the game. The flow is shorter, which is to try to keep you playing most of the time instead of just waiting. All together the intention there is just to keep you playing instead of doing other things that may not be necessary in the game."
We recently learned that FIFA 21 also won't have VAR or fan-free stadiums, either.
Despite being two of the most controversial aspects of the 2019-2020 season, EA's next football sim isn't looking to replicate them in-game. As Ben summarised at the time, VAR – short for ‘video assistant referee’ – has been met with mostly negative feedback from fans of the Premier League following a series of marginal offside calls being overturned, and its use in England is likely to be reviewed this summer. Fan-free stadiums are a result of the coronavirus pandemic and expected to be the norm next season in most major football leagues.
