Shearer and Sutton. Keys and Gray. Allardyce and pints of wine. Football’s Premier League era has been shaped by all manner of game-changing double acts. By contrast, the last three decades on the virtual pitch have been ruled by just one particular pairing.
EA Sports and FIFA’s 30-year partnership has generated hundreds of millions of videogame sales and tens of billions of dollars in revenue. Perhaps inevitably it’s now come to an end thanks, largely, to a row over how that money is distributed and a disagreement over just which party is responsible for that popularity – what feuding rock musicians used to call ‘creative differences’, essentially.
And so FIFA 23 finds the franchise hanging up its boots. A few months back, the developers’ official unveiling suggested the series might fizzle out in a half-hearted holding pattern, that this final instalment would be the equivalent of an old-school player testimonial in which the referee is duty bound to award a penalty just to ensure an ageing veteran can sign off with a goal and some sympathy applause.
It’s no small surprise, then, to discover FIFA 23 is something of a baller, more akin to a late winner in a mid-ranking domestic cup competition (let’s not get too carried away – this is still an incremental annual update after all). It all starts, as it should, on the pitch. The game engine’e deeply unsexily named new mechanics, Hypermotion 2 and AccelerATE, combine to make a truly beautiful whole.
By the end of the season last year’s game was, in the commentator’s vernacular, running through treacle – particularly on current gen consoles, where players were leaden-footed and the ball wobbled through the air on seemingly pre-destined trajectories.
In comparison, FIFA 23 moves. New animations and physics models make for a gloriously unpredictable affair. Sure, it’s still possible to pull off impossible skill moves at the drop of a shoulder button but the increase in collisions and ricochets accurately represents the chaos underpinning the game’s beauty.
And after years of vacillating between extremes, it finally feels like FIFA has got a handle on player pace. By dividing the roster into archetypes of sprinters, long-distance runners, and a blend of the two, the game inherently feels more balanced – and fair.
It’s a common theme. The goalscoring pendulum seems more centred: defensive tackling feels more effective but the keepers more realistically fallible should your attacker break through. The gimmicky power shot is largely unstoppable if you get it away, but that’s not always a given thanks to the move’s comically long wind-up.
Of course, all the usual caveats with regard to future gameplay patches apply here. FIFA matches in January are markedly different from those in October, and definitively calling the experience on release is like judging the effectiveness of a transfer window on deadline day. Still, you can only review what’s in front of you, and FIFA 23 currently plays better than it has in years.
Elsewhere EA Sports have spent a commendable amount of time making good on their pre-release promise of creating their most inclusive FIFA yet. The increased focus on the women’s game is, frankly, long overdue – even if the execution still feels a touch tokenistic.
Chelsea cover star Sam Kerr features throughout, and female footballers have been motion captured for the first time, ensuring they move correctly on the pitch. However the licensed English WSL and French Division 1 Feminine leagues are easy to miss amid the multitude of mens’ competitions and, in practice, are largely reskins, with the teams playing in their male counterparts’ stadiums (Manchester City aside). Even AFC Richmond, the fictional team from the TV show Ted Lasso included here as a PR stunt, get their own ground to play in.
