Lengthy is back in EA Sports FC 24… mostly

Veteran players are back in EA Sports FC 24, but will their reign of terror continue?

Whether it’s the lethal speed of TOTS Kane, the tractor beam defense of Winter Wildcards Varane, or the elite animations of simple Gold Virgil van Dijk, long players may not be as powerful now as when they first dropped at the start of FIFA 23, but some of them are still extremely good, considering the usage rate of the Vanja Milinkovic-Savic shapeshifters.

Whereas previously all players were divided into three Rush archetypes (Explosive, Controlled, and Long), in EA Sports FC 24 there are more than double that amount, with players being classified as “Mostly Explosive” or “Mostly Long” depending where do they feel on the statistics scale.

Controlled players reach their top speed gradually, while Explosive players reach their top speed almost immediately, but level off over distance. Long players, on the other hand, take longer to ramp up, but build up a head of steam that allows them to catch up with other players. In practice, this means that long players cover the field faster due to the distances involved with opponents’ long dribbles. But in EA Sports FC, there will be a greater variety of racing styles rather than what feels like a blanket style for tall, average, and short players.

In FIFA 23, Long and Explosive were calculated by the difference between a player’s agility and strength attributes (while also taking into account a minimum height and speed). So it would stand to reason that in EA Sports FC 24 the new AcceleRATE archetypes would trigger at different thresholds between these stats.

“Lengthy is back, absolutely,” said Sam Rivera, a senior producer at EA Sports, in a recent Gameplay Deep Dive video.

“With Hypermotion V we have registered twice as many acceleration archetypes, which means more uniqueness, more differences, just like in real life.

“Basically, we’ve gone from a couple dozen unique racing styles to over 1,200. It’s not just the stars we had previously in our game, it’s everyone on the pitch.”

You can learn more about how this affects gameplay in our EA Sports FC 24 hands-on preview.

The release date for EA Sports FC 24 is set for September 29, 2023 on console, PC, and Switch.