Electronic Arts decided to launch a new football series, EA Sports FC, ending a 30-year partnership with FIFA.
Compared to its predecessor, in-game stats, such as stamina depletion and goals are now presented through crisp overlays as the game proceeds, making the atmosphere more immersive. Similarly, a sense of urgency is created with quick camera changes to referee POVs in the event of fouls, making the game feel fresh and dynamic.
Perhaps the most intriguing aspect regarding gameplay this year is the introduction of playstyles, which ensures that many players have become varied in their style of play. For example, it is made sure that two players with similar body types give you a different feeling.
Due to the same reason, creating your own players gets even more interesting–with an arsenal of 32 different abilities to choose from, tailoring players to your playstyle becomes exciting.
Additionally, the new precision pass feature deserves to be mentioned, as it allows players to deliver through balls and crosses with more accuracy, allowing for more play consistency.
The reworking of the controlled sprint has now made it every defender’s worst enemy.
From the attacker’s perspective, it’s an overpowered weapon that doesn’t need to be nerfed, even though it can be countered.
New additions such as Kinetic Shielding are gratifying in the moments that they do make a difference, but even with the introduction of artificial intelligence in the Hypermotion V technology, some battles come to a disappointing end, as players move awkwardly and inconsistently, most notably, goalkeepers.
Career mode changes
Career mode also comes with a handful of revised features, such as transfer and contract negotiation possibilities with new teams through the player agent feature.
On the surface, this seems exciting, but the emphasis placed on some unimportant objectives can sometimes doom your plans and fail to mimic realistic situations.
Ultimate Team changes
Finally, the elephant in the room, Ultimate team.
For years, EA has failed to justify the lack of innovation in this game mode. Essentially, the same product has been gift-wrapped repeatedly, with different colours each year; the only innovation arguably being FUT promos.
A very familiar problem of microtransactions persists, which leads to a pay-to-win situation. However, this year there is more innovation in this department, with the addition of Evolutions, as well as having male and female players on the pitch together, side by side.
Evolutions allows players to upgrade cards, making many of the previously unusable cards usable.
However, the decision to mix male and female players on the pitch comes with controversy as female players remain unusable in defensive and central positions throughout the midfield.
In some ways, EA Sports FC takes players to a ‘new’ playing field.
With that said, though, there is still a sense of familiarity in the air.
A plethora of new features await players with this entry but, unfortunately, so does a similar string of problems as the earlier games.
Rating: 3/5