On December 29 Pele died, the record-breaking footballer left us, a popular sportsman like Pele obviously could not fail to enter the history of video games by right, with the first virtual appearances that they date back to the early 80s.
In 1981 Atari launches Pele’s Soccer for Atari VCS 2006initially known as Championship Soccer, during the development the American house thinks well of associating the game to the figure of Pele, who appears not only on the cover but also in the television commercials.
In 1993 (1994, in Europe) it is Accolade who reports Pele on the digital soccer fields with Pelé! for SEGA Mega Drive, followed the next year by Pelé II World Tournament Soccer, based on the USA ’94 World Cup. In 2009 the sportsman lends his face to Ubisoft’s Academy of Champions Soccer, released on Nintendo Wii while a few years later Pelé Soccer Legend arrives, a video game for iPhone and Android.
Pele is also on the list of FIFA Icons and since 2014 it has not missed a single edition of the EA Sports football game, included in the FIFA FUT roster as a Legend, and it is Electronic Arta that pays tribute to Pele with a post on the FIFA social profiles. But Pele has also appeared in video games not strictly related to football such as Rocket Leaguethanks to a collaboration dated 2020.
