FIFA 24 is dead, long live EA Sports FC 24: preview

I never thought I’d be impressed by arms in a video game, but here we are.

Realistically, EA Sports FC 24 was always going to be the same kind of iterative step as if it were called fifa24, drawing on and balancing the characteristics of its predecessor’s masterpiece while tentatively introducing its own. But it’s amazing what tricks your brain can play by changing the orientation of a menu. With a stunning, black, vertical user interface, the slickly-branded EA Sports FC feels genuinely new, on and off the pitch, with plenty of exciting and nerdy additions to get your pulse racing.

From the start, the first thing you notice about EA Sports FC 24 is the small details. There was a lot of talk about the Hypermotion technology that drives natural-looking animations, but here “Hypermotion V” offers a lot of really noticeable organic movements in players’ arms, hands, and bodies.

It’s beyond cliché to say that “players feel like they have more weight”, but players feel like they have more weight, with a greater variety of small interstitial moves and touches. This is, of course, in comparison to a post-Shapeshifters meta. FIFA 23 Ultimate Team (where 95 pace is about the bare minimum), but there is noticeably less ice skating where players glide across the field. And while there are some places that feel the same, particularly the celebrations, overall it’s a definite improvement.

Previous iterations of Hypermotion relied on just a couple of full matches of data from Spain’s second and third tier, while Hypermotion V draws from more than 180 top flight and main competition games where cameras were used around the stadium. to capture the court as a 3D space. Realistic player movements could be turned into animations.

An example EA has given of this is Erling Haaland’s acrobatic and commanding bicycle kick against Arsenal last seasonwhich has been translated directly into an animation that players can use in EA Sports FC 24.

Due to overall player movement, there is a much better cadence when coming off defense. I remember playing a version of FIFA 23 when Longy AcceleRATE was at its highest and it seemed like Wendy Renard could go from box to box in about three steps. The course feels bigger here, giving everything a little more room to breathe.

There are also a couple of new ways to use this space. If you hold R1 and run, you’ll have a new controlled sprint that’s faster than jogging but slower than sprinting, sort of the opposite of a defender’s maneuverability. Players shoot faster in EA Sports FC 24 than they did in FIFA 23, making this another way to get closer to the goal without being immediately closed off.

Top-tier passers can also perform controlled and deflected balls with R1 and Triangle/Y (think De Bruyne or Kane finding a teammate in the box with the outside of his boot) as another attacking option.

AcceleRATE has also been retuned. Instead of just Explosive, Controlled, and Long, there are 7 different biases. So players can now be “Mostly Long” or “Mostly Explosive” in different contexts.

Next, as you play the game, you’ll see a few different RPG-style icons appear around your players as they progress through their game. These are the new PlayStyles, ostensibly created using data from Opta Sports’ top statisticians, that aim to give players more unique abilities on the pitch. It gives the gameplay a bit of a superhero or MOBA vibe, as a magnet touch symbol flashes over Riyad Mahrez when he catches the ball or the smart tackler icon appears for Kadeisha Buchanan when he gets possession of the ball afterwards. of a sliding tackle.

Players can each have multiple PlayStyles, while the world’s best players can also have access to PlayStyle+ abilities; even juicier versions of the base archetype.

For example, Neymar is a Trickster+, which helps him feel silkier on the ball with access to different moves even though he and Mbappe have five-star skills. While Mbappe’s great strength is his unrealistic dribbling speed (his frontline ability), he’s also a clinical finisher, so he too has access to a shooting style of play.

There are 34 PlayStyles, with a normal version and a + version of each for a total of 68. These are spread across five archetypes with PlayStyles for goalkeepers and defenders, as well as those governing header, ball control, and shooting.

In-game, some PlayStyles like Possession Holder are subtle, helping technical midfielders like Marco Verratti and Jack Grealish feel more authentic than ever. Others are less subtle, like the powerful Power Shot PlayStyle, which allows players like Rodri to command the ball from distance.

However, it’s the first one that excites me the most. Now the ball is left in the hands of the nimble midfielders, and it looks like they might have finally figured out how to translate the skill set of icons like Xavi and Andrea Pirlo into virtual football. However, it’s also my pick for what could end up being the overpowered mechanic of this loop, as with a little effort you can go complete “ankara messi” and outrun attacking defenders like never before.

However, this can make well-timed, high-risk-reward tackles more prominent, as a solid sliding tackle seems to win the ball a lot from even the dumbest of technicians. But with that being said, an interesting defensive playstyle gives players access to a larger set of animations to block opponents’ shots, which raises questions about just how prominent and powerful the controversial “defending AI” animations will be. .

It’s another interesting wrinkle in the ideological battle at the heart of EA Sports’ soccer games. Esports pros and gamers in the hyper-competitive grind want consistency in gameplay, while EA Sports FC 24 doubles down on the idiosyncrasy, giving players more uniqueness in their abilities and a greater variety of contextual animations to take advantage of in any situation. Dadaist.

Obviously all of these impressions come from the Kick Off mode, which has always had a different feel to Career Mode and Ultimate Team. The most striking addition in EA Sports FC 24 is probably the inclusion of female players on the same field as the men in Ultimate Team, and it will be very interesting to see if the intricacies of each new mechanic can expand the relatively small pool of players. target players we see in that hugely popular and intensely competitive game mode.

There’s nothing Ultimate Team players love more than flushing out an overpowered, failed, or generally disgusting tactic, whether it’s power shots from a corner, the early miss, or the dreaded rainbow-flick-to-jump-shot combo of the old generation. And as I said with the unstoppable Longy Wendy Renard, in my experience with women’s matches in FIFA 23, the top players felt very powerful. Delphine Cascarino will be another Mbappé on the right flank, Bonmati will be as unassailable as Modric, and there are a host of fast, world-class CDMs who are basically Kante – it’s going to be chaos as we figure out where each one fits. and variety and diversity can only be a good thing.

So while all of that may be less impressive than it seems at first glance, at least in its first iteration, EA Sports FC 24 can’t be said to be exactly the same as last year.

The release date for EA Sports FC 24 is set for September 29, 2023.