 There is no FIFA 24 this year but EA's first football game without the name is still a very familiar experience. So here it is: the first post-FIFA FIFA game. Yes, it's going to take a while to get used to that rather bland and insubstantial new moniker; it doesn't exactly trip off the tongue and it's awkward to write out. But after a weekend spent with, err… EA Sports FC 24, we're left with more than a suspicion that fans of EA's – and the world's – flagship annual football game franchise won't find it difficult to cope with the enforced name change. To recap, EA declined to renew its official FIFA licence for what had been the FIFA series of games – due, it's rumoured, to FIFA's beyond-eye-watering financial demands. And so EA Sports FC was created instead. EA has retained the official licences for all the major football leagues, as well as the official UEFA licence, so you sill get all the teams from the Premier League, the Football League, all Europe's domestic cup competitions, and all European cup competitions. The only thing that won't appear in the franchise, as a result of the split with FIFA, is the World Cup. When EA announced the split with FIFA, FIFA itself asserted that it would make its own FIFA-branded games, which will, according to them, be 'the best one.' Meanwhile, EA has clearly used the forced rebrand to up its game and completely rethink the franchise, introducing a raft of technical innovations to what was already, by some distance, the most technically advanced football game in the world. What's immediately obvious is that that while, from the moment you boot it up, FC 24 is tangibly different to its predecessors, it still manages to feel reassuringly familiar. The first thing you notice is that EA has reworked its main menu. Many would argue that, given the game's increasing complexity in recent years, with a welter of new modes that go far beyond the franchise's original remit, it's hi){kind=link}
There is no FIFA 24 this year but EA’s first football game without the name is still a very familiar experience.
So here it is: the first post-FIFA FIFA game. Yes, it’s going to take a while to get used to that rather bland and insubstantial new moniker; it doesn’t exactly trip off the tongue and it’s awkward to write out. But after a weekend spent with, err… EA Sports FC 24, we’re left with more than a suspicion that fans of EA’s – and the world’s – flagship annual football game franchise won’t find it difficult to cope with the enforced name change.
To recap, EA declined to renew its official FIFA licence for what had been the FIFA series of games – due, it’s rumoured, to FIFA’s beyond-eye-watering financial demands. And so EA Sports FC was created instead. EA has retained the official licences for all the major football leagues, as well as the official UEFA licence, so you sill get all the teams from the Premier League, the Football League, all Europe’s domestic cup competitions, and all European cup competitions. The only thing that won’t appear in the franchise, as a result of the split with FIFA, is the World Cup.
When EA announced the split with FIFA, FIFA itself asserted that it would make its own FIFA-branded games, which will, according to them, be ‘the best one.’ Meanwhile, EA has clearly used the forced rebrand to up its game and completely rethink the franchise, introducing a raft of technical innovations to what was already, by some distance, the most technically advanced football game in the world.
What’s immediately obvious is that that while, from the moment you boot it up, FC 24 is tangibly different to its predecessors, it still manages to feel reassuringly familiar. The first thing you notice is that EA has reworked its main menu. Many would argue that, given the game’s increasing complexity in recent years, with a welter of new modes that go far beyond the franchise’s original remit, it’s high time that happened.