It’s an exciting new era for EA Sports football games. Or at least it should be following the move away from FIFA and into a brand the studio has full control over. Unfortunately, EA Sports FC 24 isn’t the breath of fresh air I hoped for, even keeping many of the same issues that made FIFA 23 frustrating.
With a lack of new modes to dive into, the on-pitch upgrades are where you’ll find the most impactful changes.
There are the annual buzzword changes that are difficult for the standard player to decipher the impact of - Hypermotion V in EA FC 24’s case - so it’s better to analyse the football itself in more general terms.
Returning problems
This is where I was left most surprised by this year’s game, as it feels a lot less new than I expected. I’d say it’s quicker than previous FIFA games often were at launch, particularly in online play, with dribbling, passing, and general movement all being fast and fluid. As someone who plays FIFA with a pretty direct passing approach, I enjoy that pace.
EA Sports FC 24’s new volumetric capture technology has had a clear impact too. On top of the game being better graphically across the board, every touch, shimmy, and strike of the ball looks natural. The weird, super-human movements of previous games are few and far between, which is particularly impressive considering the pace is so high.
It also makes shooting in EA FC 24 extremely satisfying. So far, the game’s been a goal fest. 10 to 15 goal games are a common occurrence, in part due to the strength of shooting generally. Finesse shots, front post shots, early whipped crosses, and shots across the keeper all seem useful when the opportunity arises, which is fun.
Otherwise, gameplay is shockingly similar to FIFA 23’s. I’m normally someone who laughs off suggestions that EA’s football games are “the same game every year” as there’s always quirks to the action and a meta that becomes clear with each new game.
However, many of the key identifiers of FIFA 23’s gameplay have returned for FC 24. Passing is still frustratingly inconsistent. It’s less due to inaccuracy of passes, which can be attributed to low passing stats of players, but more a case of players choosing wrong passes, or under-hitting them wildly under no pressure.
It can ruin counter attacks, make attempting to break down low blocks tricky, and means playing out from the back is really risky. In the 50 or so matches I’ve played, I lost count of the number of times my goalkeeper or defender tapped the ball to the opposing striker instead of putting some weight on it or firing it out to the fullback like I asked.
Elsewhere, heading is still a lottery, physical challenges are inconsistent, trivela shots from the corner of the box are still overpowered, and goalkeepers lose their minds from time to time.
FIFA games have issues every year, but these problems feel particularly familiar. It’s hard to explain how they feel without saying “anyone who played FIFA 23 will know what I mean.” It feels like the precise issues with last year’s game have been brought over in the same form.
Also, the bug that makes it impossible to switch players after a loose ball bounces off your player’s shin has returned, opponent high press tactics seem to exacerbate your team’s passing inconsistency, and player switching lacks common sense at times.
Playstyles are fun but OP
The most noticeable new gameplay feature is the addition of Playstyles. They give players additional abilities in various categories that affect pace, shooting ability, strength on the ball, and power in duels. The basic ones are hard to notice, but the golden PlayStyle+ abilities might prove to be overpowered.
For example, I’ve been using Heung-Min Son and Alex Morgan, both of whom have the Finesse Shot PlayStyle+, which drastically improves the speed, curve, and accuracy of finesse shots. Honestly, it makes them unstoppable from most positions. Since both those players have a 5-star weak-foot, you can realistically whip a curling shot from anywhere and expect to see it fly into the top corner.
The power of the shooting PlayStyle+ abilities are more noticeable than the others, and I’ll admit they’re extremely fun to use, but I’d be shocked if they don’t get balanced a little in the coming weeks.
The general pace and high scoring nature means the on-pitch action can be a lot of fun. The new and returning issues mean EA Sports FC 24 maintains the prior series’ ability to invoke a level of frustration that few games do.
Many more squad options
The other big addition of EA Sports FC 24 is the merging of male and female players in Ultimate Team. They’re my favourite addition to Ultimate Team in years, thanks mostly to the variety in team building they offer.
Linking to each other, as well as male players of the same club or nation (but not league), they’re semi-simple to fit into teams, and rating them in-line with male counterparts means many of them are comfortably among the best options.
On the pitch, female players match the abilities of male players. They pass, shoot, jump, and run in identical ways, the female players differing in a physical sense only.
Simply put, they’re smaller, so have to be used in certain ways. They won’t win headers and can get bullied off the ball if they have particularly slight body-types. Therefore, you’re never going to want to use a female goalkeeper or centre back if you’re looking to thrive in competitive modes. You’d be stupid to pick 5’7” Leah Williamson over 6’4” William Saliba, even if the former is higher rated and has better defensive stats.
However, that same reasoning means there are countless quality female wingers and strikers. They wriggle past defenders with ease, bursting past defensive lines faster than taller male alternatives.
It’ll be fun to see how female players play into the meta and how often EA Sports involves them in promo teams as the meta evolves. I hope they continue to be valuable team options as having more choice when it comes to useable players will improve Ultimate Team massively.
Evolutions and Ultimate Team QoL improvements
Elsewhere in Ultimate Team, EA FC 24 has received a bunch of quality of life changes, as well as the new Evolutions feature.
Evolutions allow you to upgrade players by completing in-game objectives, which in turn increases the pool of potential options for your team. At least at the start of the game, pretty much any half decent player has the potential to be a mainstay of your team.
It’s a shame Evolutions isn’t simply a case of picking any player and upgrading them as much as you’d like until the end of the game cycle, but they’re fun nonetheless. I just hope EA Sports monitor the power curve sufficiently and keep Evolution upgrades in line. Objective and Season Progress reward cards haven’t done so for years, so I hope lessons are learned for Evolutions. As fun as the feature is, I’m not using an 81 rated Evolution card in Champs in January while others run around with Team of the Years.
The new UI is far more user friendly, if a little buggy, automatic alternate position changing is more than welcome, the ability to ‘claim all rewards’ in Objectives is lovely, and the reduction in Squad Battles match length makes the worst mode far, far more palatable.
Get your wallet out
Disappointingly though, EA Sports has doubled down on their attempts to push every single player towards buying FC Points with real money.
Tradeable Welcome Back packs are gone, Foundation and Advanced SBC rewards are untradeable for the first time, and even some Evolutions can be purchased with real money. Removing those early game rewards means the ability to get coins without spending money or trading on the transfer market is extremely difficult. My team is almost entirely untradeable on the day the game releases. That’s what I’d expect months into the game, not in late-September, but the structure of rewards this year means there’s little other choice.
EA Sports has been pushing players towards spending money more and more in recent years, but FC 24 is comfortably the most egregious example of it, removing one of the most fun aspects of the game, the early game coin grind. If they’re going to push untradeable teams and real world money spending, EA Sports HAS to provide better options to manage duplicate content you can’t sell for coins.
Improvements to other modes
Elsewhere, FC 24’s other modes have received minimal but welcome changes. If anyone still plays Volta, there are some progression and cosmetic alterations to enjoy. Pro Clubs also finally has crossplay, so you and your mates can play together no matter what system you play on, which is brilliant.
Career Mode still suffers from a lack of precision, with transfer conversations and player relationships contradicting themselves sentence to sentence just as they did last year, but the new coaching and philosophy aspects are interesting for manager career die-hards to dive into and experiment with.
They likely won’t be enough to entice the majority of players away from Ultimate Team, as the mode still feels quite basic a lot of the time, but Career Mode die-hards will love some of the tactical opportunities the additions allow for.
As always, time will tell how fun FIFA 23 is as live content evolves and the community figures out the quirks of gameplay, but I’m disappointed that EA Sports hasn’t taken the start of a new era as a reason to flex their muscles with some more significant improvements.
Reviewed on PlayStation 5. A code was provided by the publisher.