Every year in September regarding the EA game, the question of the fans is the same: What new will this year’s FIFA have? And it is that the EA game formula for more than 25 years has turned this sports simulator into one of the longest-running and most successful sagas in the video game industry.
FIFA 23 Edition holds special meaning for fans and its developers as it is, at least for now, EA’s latest soccer game. with the official license to use the name “FIFA”. The reasons practically all fans of the game know them: EA considered that the fee imposed for renewal of the exclusive use of the “FIFA” brand in the video game was too expensive and chose to dispense with the use of this right as of the 2024 edition, His other argument was that his game gives more value to the FIFA brand and not the other way around, as might be supposed.
For this farewell name, EA has gone all out as they have promoted it, FIFA 23 is the most ambitious game of this franchise in recent years. Not only have critical gameplay changes been introduced, but “forgotten” game modes have also been polished in recent editions such as the beloved career mode or PRO Clubs.interesting updates have been added in the most played modalities such as FUT and the long-awaited cross-play or cross-play between consoles and PC has arrived.
The initial content of the game will not be the final one and EA Sports promotes this title as a Live Service that will be complemented with free DLCs. 2023 is also the year of the men’s soccer world cup that will atypically take place in November and the company has promised exclusive content for it in the coming weeks. The 2024 Women’s World Cup will also have its special space in the game the following year.
FIFA 23 Edition holds special meaning for fans and its developers as it is, at least for now, EA’s latest soccer game.
FIFA 23: Pocket Guardian
One of the great bets of the game that we have been able to notice is EA’s interest in players learning to play FIFA 23 thoroughly without the game becoming a boring world of tutorials. His bet goes on simplified explanations of his game mode, almost bullet points of key explanations and AI support to help the player polish his skill.
Just at the beginning, FIFA 23 lets us see one of its key points in this objective: the entertainment center which will be the great companion for novice players who have left the series for years or who have simply wanted to start in FIFA.
In previous years the game in the first contact received you in the middle of the action with a match that could be the Champions League final, in FIFA 23, Sam Kerr and Kyliam Mbappé welcome you as “instructors” to teach you the basics with a test match that will suggest the level of the AI and some basic training to get familiar with the control of the ball.
The Training Center not only offers tutorials on how to use the controller, but also leaves increasingly difficult challenges to the player that are complemented by a feedback section called “custom feedback” that offers advice to improve on what the game “creates » that you should do it, this section can be accessed from any match where a player invites you to watch a video and “rewind” a few seconds or at the end of the match, as feedback on the match.
The Learning Center comes with the now traditional in-game “instructor” mode, which shows when a player has selected buttons or their combinations to act. Now it goes further and shows possible trajectories and angles that the player can see. Promptly so much information on the screen what it has generated for us is distraction when playing
Big data football
Hypermotion 2 is the evolution of the technology presented in FIFA 22, which consists of using the computational power of millions of data from real football to make the way in which the game’s players behave, interact with each other, with the scenario more “realistic” and of course, with the ball.
During a presentation a few months ago, the EA SPORTS team discussed how they used data science and machine learning technologies to improve the game’s gameplay and AI. The result in our first games has been quite satisfactory, making plays that we did not see in other soccer games before but that occur in traditional games, for example, taking the ball from a defender inside the goal (and being a goal). It has also been fun how goalkeepers save a ball “grazing with their nails” or that a player puts the most natural body to block a shot.
This inclusion of data, analytics and statistics is not only found internally in the game, but also in the menus, in the results of the matches, intermissions, fences, statistics analysis, replays and even transitions where Hypermotion 2 is permanently promoted .
All this excess data can be somewhat counterproductive, the game makes an effort to project that it measures a lot of data from the players, their shooting trajectories, success rate, performance graphs and in some way distorts the “wanting to be realistic football” and constantly remind yourself that it is computing, AI, etc. Of course, this data is useful for the most dedicated players and perhaps as part of the show, but unlike a traditional match where inserting data analysis is an innovation and in some way helps to understand the players better, here so many statistics, diagram and analytics just reminds us that this is a game.
There is still a lot to try…
The sensations so far with FIFA 23 on PS5 have been good in terms of gameplay and its large amount of content invites us to delve deeper for the full development of this review. Both the new way of taking free kicks and penalties, the “powerful” shots and how to place them and the tweaks in defense, have forced us to spend a little more time getting used to it.
Perhaps so far the weak point in this game is that it has lost a bit of the Latin American flavor. Although there are Latin competitions and some clubs. The selections, more stadiums, improving the faces and character designs of the Latin teams are needed because it feels more rushed and to be fulfilled than as a feature. A Champions League match is not the same as a Copa Libertadores match, the graphic detail in kits, faces, animations and even the setting inside and outside the stadium is very different.
For now we need to delve into online game modes and activities such as crossplay, keep an eye on our review that will be updated…