EA Sports FC 24 Review

Additional Review Input: Graham Cameron

It’s a new dawn for FIFA fans, out with the old and in with the new. FIFA is no more and has been ushered out the door. The brand-new EA SPORTS FC 24 is here! But how new is it? Is it the same old FIFA we’ve grown to love and hate, or is there anything new for us to dig our teeth into?

Before getting into it, it’s worth mentioning that we’re doing things a little differently with our EA SPORTS FC 24 review this year, I’ll (Special guest Pete) be mostly covering the offline modes, with Graham mostly covering the online stuff.

So fellow offliners, what’s there for us this year,? Well as you’d expect, ‘kick-off’ mode is back. The usual stuff is in there from classic one vs ones, house rules and tournaments like the men’s and women’s Champions League. Fans of Volta football will be happy to see its return, but I’ve never been one for flicks and tricks so I don’t have any opinion on if that’s been improved on, but squads, Arcade and Volta battles are there.

For any newcomers or for those that have been in PES denial for the last decade+ there are ways to learn the game. You have the training centre which will teach you the fundamentals when it comes to passing, attacking, defending and dribbling. You then have skill games which then let you put the basics you’ve learnt in the training centre into practice. Lastly, you have the practice area, which lets you set up scenarios and practice anything you feel you need to improve.

But if you’re an offliner like me then I guess you’re here for the meaty stuff right? Career mode I hear you say? Well sure, I’ve got you covered, let’s start with Player Career, the lesser used of the two. There are a few new things they’ve added, the first being you getting an agent. Your agent will help guide you in your career and they’ll give recommendations for which clubs to join in the future, For example, the player I made currently plays for Chelsea, I have goals to achieve if I want my contract renewed, but my agent recommended Crystal Palace as one of my next clubs, which has different goals. These goals will change depending on how the club plays football, so with Crystal Palace, they want to see me score a minimum of 13 goals, two of which are bicycle kicks, and be in the starting line-up 18% of the time. With Chelsea however, to earn my new contract, I would have to appear in 28% of matches, complete 17 one vs one’s and score six finesse goals. You are not limited to those choices though. If you want to forge your path and fancy yourself a big shot, you can aim for a club like Real Madrid in Spain, however these guys want to see 58 successful key dribbles, appear in 58% of game and score at least 4 chip goals.

The player personality system has been expanded this year, once you level up enough you can choose up to 8 different ‘playstyles’. For my player, I chose the Finesse shot and being more technical, so if you want your player to play a certain way you can mould them the way you see fit. There are a few more customization options as well, including being able to add tattoos to your player and faceguards.

What about Manager Career then which is one of the modes that made FIFA popular but has been neglected for as long as I can remember in favor of the money hungry Ultimate Team offering. Well, you’ll be pleased to hear that just like the main menu, the UI has had a refresh which makes it feel fresh and a breakaway from the rinse and repeat of previous years. Once you’ve created your manager, you’ll be asked to select the tactical vision you’d like to implement into your squad. There are 7 to choose from including Tiki Taka, Counter-attack or just Balanced. Once you’ve decided the way you want your team to play you can hire coaches, which is probably the biggest update to career mode this year. Each coach has a 1-5 star rating on training your goalkeepers, defenders, midfielders and attackers. They will also have a tactical preference so if you want to play Tika Taka, then it would be best to hire coaches with that preference. Don’t be too worried though as just like the players, coaches can grow and can become experts in time if you stick to a playstyle.

Coaches can influence your player’s stats as well, increasing vital stats for their position. Stat boosts will also be affected by how match-sharp your players are. Speaking of match sharpness, training has had an overhaul, so there’s no need to spend hours at the start of any career mode to try and get an ‘A’ in every training drill. You can choose training plans, which in a nutshell is training intensity. In my humble opinion, this is a great addition. Why? Because unlike in previous years where if a player didn’t play for 2-3 games and their match fitness dropped like a concrete block in water, now you can keep your reserves fit, huzzah! To end the training part, as previously mentioned there’s no need to grind, when you reach a matchday you can now select a single training session. These are all the same drills from previous years, but now there’s a small twist, completing a session will give the players who completed training a temporary playstyle. So if you intend to play Tika Taka football then you may want to try extreme hot potato. This gives two players a boost to playing the Tika Taka system and one player the ‘pinged pass’ skill. It did start to feel a bit samey after about 10 weeks of the season but could well be my attention span.

And that’s about it for the manager career, with the facelift and the new features it does feel like EA has tried to distance themselves from FIFA career mode, which is most welcome. Hopefully, we’ll see more new features added every year, but the cynic in me fears this might be it for a while.

I won’t touch too much on the actual gameplay itself as Graham will be covering that in more detail, however, I will say I was happy to see that ball control seems to affect players now, the ball won’t just stick to the lesser players now which could see turnovers in play.

This is where I (Graham) will talk about the gameplay and the online features. Well, what is new with the gameplay? Is it a Nintendo Switch FIFA copy and paste? The short answer is no. They keep advertising and focusing hard on the player’s touch and realistic movements which emulate some of the main stars of the modern game. A new dribbling feature has replaced the close control feature in the previous game. Holding RB now will keep the ball close to your play but also dribble with some speed depending on your player’s stats. This is a bit more game-changing as it allows bursting runs with the ball but with more control of the ball leading to more goal-scoring chances.

They have also introduced playstyles which Pete touched on before. Some players have specific playstyles which has a big impact on games. For example, those with a pinged pass can hit a pass with more power which will make it much harder for the opposition to intercept. There are dead-ball specialists whose accuracy at free kicks and corners can almost certainly hit it exactly where you want it. There are those with a magnetic first touch so it takes them less time when receiving a ball to transition into a dribble or sprint. They essentially work as a powerup but they are applied to players who have that level of ability in real life.

The defending has been altered and many are struggling with so many boosts to the first touch, dribbling and passing that the chances for a goalscoring opportunity are ramped up. It is tricky to master this year compared to previous years but a good use of jockeying, blocking, applying pressure and good intercepting skills can keep most attacks at bay if you are willing to learn it. There are options to switch settings back to the similar defensive style of previous games but this isn’t always available when playing online modes plus I think everyone should try and embrace all the new things EA are trying to introduce. I have to mention goalkeeping this year has taken a weird turn although they mention they have been tweaked to deal with one-on-ones a little better.

 There has been some negative feedback about goalkeeping behaviour and the way they seem to miss very clear saving opportunities to just punch the ball out in horrible places. I have seen first hand goalies diving in on themselves or spilling such easy catches and in online games it can be heartbreaking to concede a goal to daft goalie error. There has also been a lot of noise around the penalizing of fouls and lack thereof. I have seen and experienced times where it seems the opposition has gotten away with a clear foul and on the flip side I have been red-carded for some real soft challenges. It does feel a bit random this year but these things usually get balanced out with fixes.

With the online modes, the main three are still here. The online Seasons mode is similar to previous versions where you can play others online using your favourite team as you try to progress to higher levels to find people at a similar skill level as yourself. There is the Pro Clubs option which has had a few tweaks to it. You can now apply some play styles like I mentioned above to your club pro to help give you an edge in games. Plus you can now team up with members on other platforms which has been a long time coming.

The last online mode which is what most people buy EA SPORTS FC 24 is the Ultimate Team mode and yes it is as addictive as it always is if you play it the right way. I know there are many streamers out there spending fortunes on the pack-opening system this game offers but I can’t get on board with spending real money here as it’s such a dirty way to play. I prefer to earn my rewards and there is plenty of opportunity to do that. For those unfamiliar with the Ultimate Team mode, essentially the concept is you play games to complete objectives and earn coins which can be used to unlock packs or purchase packs which contain footballers and other items to help build your fantasy team. It’s a luck of the draw what players you get out of the pack and that’s where the mystery and chance are the exciting part for me as I earn the rewards that I get. But once you have built a team you feel happy with then you pit them against other player’s fantasy teams to see how you fair.

With the inclusion of female footballers and leagues into the Ultimate Team it has now provided an interesting new twist that affects your ultimate team. The female footballer’s stats are reflective of their league performance and so the stats are comparable to the men’s. I am not a fool, I know there is a gulf of ability between the leading male and female leagues but by making the lady’s stats more comparable it means more players can field teams of males and females and still have a great game. I for one enjoy the inclusiveness as it allows for more options to help structure your fantasy team.

Another Ultimate Team innovation is the evolution process. This allows you to select footballing talents which meet certain criteria, such as a pacey winger or upcoming talent. Their stats are generally lower but by completing evolution objectives you can improve the stats of the player to turn them into a decent addition to your ultimate team. I think this is an interesting idea and it’s good that you can boost a player you like to help them fit into your team where usually their low level and stats would see them not make the starting squad.

My only drawback with the Ultimate Team this year is firstly that they have included quite a few high-level cards too early which the streamers overspend to try and get in a pack. But this in turn floods the player market where people sell their unwanted players to others and they only get a meagre return. It also means that some high-level players are quite cheap because the market is awash with them. Usually, the player market gets this way at the latter end of the footballing season as the new game approaches so EA will have a task on their hands to keep coming out with new objectives and themes to keep players hooked, but they have good form in doing this in previous years so fingers crossed they do so here.

Conclusion

Offline players can now rejoice as we finally have some new features in career mode. It’s probably the first time in many years that the career modes don’t just feel copied and pasted and long may it last! For Online folk, the best game modes are still here with the same few tweaks to keep the core of what made them fun but add interesting new features to keep you on the hook. It may have a new name but it’s still the best football game out there

This game was tested and reviewed on Xbox Series X/S. All of the opinions and insights here are subject to that version. Game provided by publisher.