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

I never thought an arm in a video game would impress me, but here we are.

In fact, EA Sports FC 24 will always be the same iteration as if it were called FIFA 24, building on and balancing the showcase features of its predecessor while tentatively rolling out its own. But it’s amazing what flipping menu directions can do in your brain. With a gleaming black vertical UI, this beautifully branded EA Sports FC feels truly new on and off the pitch, adding plenty of exciting nerdy elements to get your heart racing.

Right from the start, the first thing you notice in EA Sports FC 24 is the tiny details. Hypermotion technology provides a lot of support for natural animation, but here, “Hypermotion V” provides a lot of real perceivable organic movement for the player’s arms, hands and body.

The phrase “the player feels like they have more weight” is beyond a cliché, but the player does feel like they have more weight, and there is a greater variety of small gap movements and touches.Of course, this is compared to post-shaper metadata FIFA 23 Ultimate Team (of which a pace of 95 is about the minimum pace), but players are skating significantly less on the court. While some parts feel similar — especially the festivities — overall, it’s a definite improvement.

Whereas previous iterations of Hypermotion were based on data from just a few full games of Europe’s second and third tiers, Hypermotion V pulls data from over 180 top-flight and top-flight matches, using cameras around the stadium to capture pitch data in 3D space . Then, the real movement of the player can be translated into animation.

One example given by EA is Erling Haaland’s acrobatic and dominant volley against Borussia Dortmund last season, which has been translated directly into an animation that players can draw on in EA Sports FC 24.

Judging from the overall movement of the players, the rhythm of getting out of the defense is much better. I remember playing a version of FIFA 23 with the Lengthy AcceleRATE at its strongest, and it felt like Wendy Renard could go from box to box in about three moves. The pitch here feels bigger, giving everything more room to breathe.

There are also some new ways to use this space. Holding R1 and sprinting gives you a new controlled sprint that’s faster than a canter, but slower than a full-on sprint – kind of like the opposite of the defender’s jockey ability. Players can shoot faster in EA Sports FC 24 than in FIFA 23, which is another way to get closer to the goal without being immediately blocked.

Top passers can also use R1 and Triangle/Y to control and steer the ball – think De Bruyne or Kane looking for teammates on the outside of the box with the outside of the boot – as another attacking option.

AcceleRATE has also been retuned. Not just explosive, controlled and lengthy, but also 7 different inclines. As a result, players can now be “mostly lengthy” or “mostly explosive” in different environments.

Next, when you play the game, you’ll see a few different RPG-style icons appear around the player as they play. These are new styles of play – apparently constructed using data from leading statistician Opta Sports – designed to give players more unique feel abilities on the pitch. It brings a bit of a superhero or MOBA vibe to the gameplay, with magnet touch symbols flashing on Riyad Mahrez when he catches the ball, or when Kadeisha Buchanan has the ball, the smart The tackle icon will pop up on her. sliding shovel.

Each player can have multiple playstyles, and t he best players in the world can use PlayStyle+ abilities; even more versions of the basic archetype.

For example, Neymar is a “cheat +”, although he and Mbappe both have five-star skills, he can use different movements and feel extra smooth on the ball. While Mbappe’s strength lies in his incredible speed dribbling (his top-line ability), he is also a calm finisher, so he can use his shooting style as well.

There are 34 playstyles, each with regular and + versions, for a total of 68. These styles are spread across five archetypes and include play styles targeting goalkeepers and defenders, as well as play styles that control headers, possession and shots.

In the game, some styles of play (such as possession) are subtle, helping technical midfielders like Marco Verratti and Jack Grealish feel more real than ever. Others are less subtle, like the Tour’s Power Shot PlayStyle, which allows players like Rodri to absolutely steal the ball from distance.

It’s the former that excites me the most, though. Now that the ball is only glued to the nimble midfielders, it feels like they may finally have figured out how to translate the skills of icons like Xavi and Andrea Pirlo into virtual football. It’s also something I’ve picked that could end up being a powerful mechanic for this cycle, because with a little effort, you can play the full “Ankara Messi” and get rid of onslaught defenders like never before.

However, it will make well-timed, high-risk-reward tackles more prominent, as solid sliding tackles seem to win a lot of balls for even the oddest of technicians. But having said that, an interesting defensive play allows players to use more animations to block opponents’ shots, which raises questions about how prominent and powerful “AI defense” animations will be.

This is another interesting question in the ideological battle at the heart of EA Sports’ football games. While esports pros and gamers alike are outspoken about wanting consistent gameplay, EA Sports FC 24 doubles down on idiosyncrasies – giving players more unique abilities and more variety in any given situation contextual animation for .

Obviously, those impressions come from the kickoff mode, which always had a different feel than Career Mode and Ultimate Team. Possibly the most notable new addition to EA Sports FC 24 is the inclusion of female players competing against male players in Ultimate Team, to see if the complexity of each new mechanic can expand the relatively small player pool, It will be very interesting. The meta-players we see in this very popular and highly competitive game mode.

There’s nothing Ultimate Team players love more than flushing overpowered, glitchy or generally mean tactics, whether it’s a power shot from the corner, a kickoff glitch, or the dreaded Rainbow Flick jumper combo of old. Like I said about the unstoppable long Wendy Leonard, in my experience playing the women’s game in FIFA 23, the best players feel very powerful. Delfina Cascarino will be another Mbappe on the right, Bommati will be as difficult to deal with as Modric, and there’s a whole bunch of quick, world-class CDMs who are basically Kante- — When we figure out where everyone is, it’s going to be a mess. Diversity and diversity can only be a good thing.

So while all of this might not be as impactful as it might seem at first glance, at least in its first iteration, you can’t say that EA Sports FC 24 is exactly the same as last year.

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