In the first bit of official news since parting ways with the FIFA license, EA kicked off the new season coinciding with their new rebrand to EA Sports FC 24. In typical EA Sports fashion, the livestream was more hype and fluff than actual substance. Sifting through boring personal life stories from EA execs for what seemed like forever, the reveal was more TED talk and less showcasing the actual game. Awkward cameos from cover athlete Erling Haaland and legend Luis Figo were drowned out by execs like Cam Weber teasing the possibility of new brand partnerships, no doubt a shot at FIFA who might have been restricting EA’s ability to expand upon or even create new deals. Thankfully, the official EAFC 24 website has been updated with more details.
EA Sports FC 24 First Impressions
Women’s Leagues Added
In an attempt to capitalize off the increasing popularity of the women’s game, EA has added two new women’s leagues to FC 24:
- Spain’s Liga F
- Germany’s Frauen-Bundesliga
New Exclusive Partnerships With La Liga, English Premier League, And UEFA
Perhaps these announcements were meant to reassure fans that despite losing the FIFA license the individual licenses that actually move units for EA are still going to be there. It’s a nice gesture but there were no real doubts from the community regarding these individual licenses, and if we’re being truthful, the actual “FIFA” license was always subpar due to the issues with licensing national sides over the past few iterations — making the World Cup game (technically a DLC) a farce compared to the days when there was a standalone game filled with in-depth modes like World Cup Qualifying and Captain Your Country.
Perhaps EA should have replaced “new” with extended but that’s a battle of semantics.
Hypermotion V – Frostbite – Playstyles
Hypermotion V
Billed as the “biggest step change in any EA Sports Game…ever,” the all new Hypermotion V is the latest tagline this year that will enable “the best gameplay we’ve ever had” according to this presser. So what makes Hypermotion V so great? Well according to EA’s website:
“HyperMotionV captures the game as it’s truly played, using volumetric data from more than 180 professional men’s and women’s football matches to influence player movements in-game. This unlocks authentic full-team movement as well as 1,200 signature run styles so fans can experience the unique ways that top players move.”
First and foremost, I am a huge fan of signature styles. I’m personally of the belief that every professional sports game should replicate the athletes as much as possible, and between the signature running styles and the brief animations we’ve seen from Vini Jr it looks much improved
Powering Hypermotion V is the “Volumetric Capture” that captures real life moments and replicates them in the game, meaning that we could see animations added to EA FC 24 over the course of the year.
Frostbite
Utilizing their new Sapien tech that can also be found in Madden, EA’s aim is to:
Achieve a new level of animation fidelity and smooth movement, we knew that our performance skeleton needed to be updated. So, we built a brand new skeleton from the ground up, delivering authenticity and ensuring our animations are true to life. totally overhauled, powered by Sapien technology to deliver more accurate player likeness (GPU Cloth, new dynamic commentary and matchday experiences)
This new technology is supposed to revolutionize Frosbite, EA’s much maligned gameplay engine, by creating more lifelike movements, something that FIFA struggled with in the past. Whether or not this means we’ll see true foot-planting to help prevent the skating feeling is still to be determined — but given EA’s history they’d surely announce foot-planting as a new feature.
Playstyles
Utilizing the partnership with OPTA, EA FC 24 will feature all new playstyles, which feature signature abilities for star players in an effort to replicate how real players move and behave. Yeah, sounds exactly like Player Traits, which previous FIFA games had. I’ll wait until more details are released, but this is the old EA case of just throwing a new shiny coat of paint on an existing feature.
Ultimate Team Changes
It wouldn’t be EA if they didn’t bring up their cash cow, Ultimate Team, which features two new additions:
- Evolutions
- Women’s Football
Evolutions
Evolutions hinges on developing your very own club legends by improving your players through completing objectives to boost their individual skills, playStyles, overall ratings, and even how their player items look.
Women’s Football
For the first time in EA FC/FIFA history, you’ll be able to mix men’s and women’s players in your Ultimate Team setup. Complete with the ability to develop club icons and legends, this should have a big impact on the way squads are put together online in Ultimate Team. How will the women’s players be rated and priced are two of the first questions that come to mind. Thankfully, EA addresses the first part of the question here:
HOW WILL RATINGS WORK?
All players in Ultimate Team are rated relative to the players they play against on the pitch in the real world. Ratings will be consistent with other modes in the game (ex. if a player is 85 rated in Kick Off, they’ll also have a base OVR of 85 in Ultimate Team).
That’s very interesting yet somehow still vague enough to pass. On the surface, that reads as everyone will have their default rating that carries over to different modes regardless if it’s a team comprised of men/women/hybrid players. Hopefully EA clarifies that statement, but I must say that I do like linking of players that play for the same affiliated club (i.e. Chelsea FC Men/Women).
Career Mode
There was no mention of it during the live session, but career mode did receive a little love via the website (emphasis on a little). For Player Career Mode, there’s a new agent system in place and of course the new playstyles that the personality system will feed into. Player Career Mode is getting more RPG-like by the year. That’s not necessarily a bad thing but the gameplay on the field needs to be good enough to want to sift through sponsorship deals. In regards to Manager Career Mode, it’s pretty vague with the promise of new tactics and some new way to train your players.
Pro Clubs
Cross-platform play is finally going to be available in Pro Clubs this year. That’s big for Pro Club players who hate long waiting times to find a match. A new Seasons format and more customization is all we know at this time as I’m sure we’ll get a Pitch Notes Deep Dive on Pro Clubs at some point.
Bottom Line
Look… It’s very early in the release cycle so we can’t expect EA to open the floodgates. Stream aside, the official EA Sports FC 24 page has enough on it to give you an idea of what their vision is for this year. From the looks of it, they spent some resources on animations and the data that feeds it. Add that with the new Sapien system and hopefully we see a more realistic experience this year.
