Fundamentally, EA Sports FC 24 just isn’t a brand new franchise.
It’s constructed on the bones of what would have been FIFA 24, in order a lot because it’s billed as a brand new period for EA Sports soccer, like each yearly replace it’s an iterative step with just a few showpiece options.
However, with that stated, the brand new Playstyles mechanic is likely one of the freshly badged sequence’ most seen and thrilling additions in a very long time – whereas additionally pushing the pendulum additional away from stoic simulation and into the blockbuster realm of sports activities leisure.
In that method, EAFC 24 mirrors among the traits we see in actual life soccer. It’s completely plastered with adverts – for Marvel, for Nike, for Instagram – in a hauntingly subliminal method, all flashing background pictures and surreptitious logos that sear themselves into your eyelids. It jogs my memory of the fruit machine zone in a motorway service station.
Then there’s the long-running, unanswered query of “micro”-transation factors, serotonin-spiking random packs and the wealth of pro-player and creator-led content material which normalises spending huge portions of cash to open packs, only for the sake of opening them.
EA Sports has additionally mastered the drip feed of every day aims and seasonal objectives to maximise the quantity of FOMO you’re feeling for taking a time off. Mix that with an intense and thrilling gameplay loop which, when pitched on the proper problem, has a lizard brain-tickling aggressive edge that asks you to play yet one more sport about as politely as Jose Mourninho asks for an opposition participant to be booked on the touchline. The finish result’s a soccer sport that has the potential to be endlessly engrossing and all-consuming.
Mechanically, fresh-out-of-the-box EAFC 24 feels very targeted on momentum, with a a lot larger emphasis on what a participant’s physique is doing independently of the ball. This is probably going all the way down to the revamped Hypermotion V tech the place EA used cameras positioned across the pitch of Champions League video games to seize the sphere as a digital area and grabbed animations from the real-life actions. It’s spectacular and, mixed with a restricted visible refresh (the place gamers who don’t have a correct face-scan appear to look higher normally,) pushes the entire expertise away from feeling samey to only a bit comparable.
There’s an fascinating metagame within the stability between large, quick, and powerful gamers who can cowl floor extraordinarily rapidly and bully everybody off the ball and technical dribblers who’ve an extremely tight contact to weasel their method via site visitors like by no means earlier than. This performs into the continued introduction of skill-gap based mostly mechanics, with “precision passes” and “managed dash” becoming a member of timed ending, energy photographs and technical left-stick dribbling. EAFC 24 is continually smashing collectively one-on-one battles and difficult you to make use of one of many methods in your arsenal to snake your via the scrum of athletic our bodies between you and the objective.
Then there’s the Playstyes. These are a set of primarily footballing superpowers which intention to offer gamers extra persona, even after they’ve bought comparable stats. The Power Shot playstyle helps you to rip off complete howitzers. Quick Step lets your tempo retailers add insult to harm by rocketing away from slowpokes even sooner. And Anticipation lets defenders hold maintain of the ball after a sort out with out it pinging again out to the opposition.
Like FIFA, the EAFC 24 meta gained’t be the identical on the finish of its yearly life cycle as in the beginning, and the way staid EA are with giving gamers these bonuses throughout Ultimate Team particular occasions could have a giant function to play in that. But I’ve some inklings that changes might need to be made. Fast and agile gamers with acceleration playstyles are so explosive that they may simply be capable of roadrunner round the whole lot. Power photographs, then again, would possibly journey so quick that you would be able to simply wallop them in from anyplace at any time when you possibly can carve out an inch.
All collectively it’s a cacophony of knowledge to soak in, digest and react to moment-to-moment. An actual adrenaline rush.
On the Career Mode entrance, EAFC 24 clears the low bar of performance to be higher than FIFA 23 (I’ve written earlier than about how the participant efficiency scores had been damaged for me throughout a number of saves to the purpose the place taking part in correctly was not possible). But to evaluate it by itself deserves, I’ve discovered the expertise as compelling because the soccer in all places else thus far.
It’s nonetheless not as reactive because it might be, or could be in a dream-game state of affairs, so incongruous and repetitive questions imply you’re skipping via press conferences earlier than lengthy, however not the entire background components really feel completely ancillary.
Rather than being one other display to simulate via, coaching drills earlier than a match now give chosen gamers a short lived Playstyle to utilise within the subsequent sport. This mixed with barely deeper membership constructing, the place you select a training philosophy like Tiki-taka or Gegenpressing then rent workers to show it to your gamers for a stat enhance, add to your managerial to-do listing and break up the Career Mode loop that’s been virtually equivalent for some time.
EAFC 24 would possibly go about attaining its objectives in a barely completely different option to the FIFA sequence, nevertheless it lands on the identical finish end result. The identical tempting sticker ebook collect-a-thon and absorbing gameplay carousel makes EAFC 24 a digital footballing platform that calls for your consideration and is tough to place down. Emulating the signature strikes of your sporting heroes with box-office Playstyles is a spotlight, however there’ll all the time be questions on whether or not the mechanic can stand as much as the take a look at of tens of millions of gamers probing for overpowered exploits.
Review-in-progress word: We’re leaving this as a review-in-progress for now till we’ve had an opportunity to play Ultimate Team in opposition to a greater pattern of actual gamers. We’ll put a correct rating on EAFC 24 shortly!
