2014 FIFA World Cup Brazil - The Pinnacle of Digital Football?

Matt Prior talks a confident game when we sit down with him to discuss the fortunes of 2014 FIFA World Cup Brazil. The game's producer - a long-suffering Man City fan - knows his football, and is clearly passionate about the FIFA brand. Given the recent success of the series, with it overhauling PES in terms of quality (not just in terms of sales, an advantage it's long had thanks to official licenses), it's easy to see why.

We recently got hands-on with the upcoming game at a recent event (you can read our thoughts here), and coming off the back of a run of matches in the tournament and in qualifying, we had plenty of questions to put to the man from EA.

Perhaps most importantly, we wanted to know what is going to set 2014 World Cup apart from the yearly FIFA releases.

From comparable previous event titles, the biggest thing is we've spent a lot of time making this a distinct and complete game. We've packed lots in there, because the World Cup is an important tournament and we wanted to make sure that we did it justice.

Our consumers are about 50% brand new, they've never played a FIFA game before, and 50% are returning FIFA users, so it was important to us that we catered for those two demographics.

So we've got lots in there for people who've never picked up a FIFA game before, we're the most accessible FIFA game ever, by virtue of a new beginner mode. We also offer a distinct upgrade and unique experience that you can't get in [other FIFA titles].

So what sets us apart is the amount that we've been able to get in there, and the atmosphere that we've been able to create. The world cup is all about atmosphere, that's such a key part of the game and we wanted to capture that. So it's a very different, immersive, atmospheric experience. From presentation to game modes, we want to have a completely new experience, really capture the essence of the World Cup and what makes it special.

Aside from atmosphere and presentation, what's going to be new? What modes are going to be exclusive to World Cup 2014?

There's a lot in there. From an offline perspective you've obviously got the World Cup itself. We've got two variations of that, you can jump to the part that we're getting excited for, the bit in Brazil in a few months' time. You can take any team in the world to that, including any of the 32 countries that have made it. That in itself is a big step from what we've done previously. We've added a lot to that. We've added training, which is a really key improvement. In previous iterations we've given you England and you've had default attribute levels and you've had to play with that. With the addition of training we've given more control to users than ever before. By virtue of training you can now focus train key attributes on key players and improve them.

Previously we went game, game, game, game as the core loop. Now we've got game, training, game, training. It breaks up the flow. It allows you to influence your players like never before. You're learning how to play the game as you're training. These training events have been designed the showcase the core attributes - tackling and all the rest of it - but they also help you learn more of the advanced roles; chip shot and slotted through ball and that sort of thing.

As for the atmosphere, one of the brand new features we've got that exemplifies that is we've got TalkSport radio in the front end. So previously you just listened to music in the front end, now we immerse the user in the whole atmosphere of the World Cup, and what's going on around them by virtue of TalkSport radio. We've got two versions actually, one with Andy Goldstein and Ian Darke, or a couple called Men In Blazers; two Brits, but they do a podcast over here [North America]. That really adds to the atmosphere of the whole event. It makes you feel part of a much larger tournament, and you'll hear how you're doing and what you need to do.

If you're coming into the last [game of the] group stage and you need three points, they'll discuss that and what that means. There's a ton of content that's specific for teams, so if you play as England you'll get unique content throughout, talking about players, Roy Hodgeson etc etc, and there's full coverage for every team in the game.

So that really adds new flavour to the tournament that we've never had before. That, coupled with all the presentation, that is in itself a very immersive mode. And that carries through to another couple of variations that we've got; Road to the World Cup, it features in that, and Captain your Country.

I take it that Road to the World Cup does exactly what it says on the tin?

Road to the World Cup is basically the entire qualification process. As a football fan you know it's not just 32 teams in Brazil, it's a much bigger tournament than that that involves every team on the planet. So, we include every team on the planet, and include the ability to qualify for the World Cup with those. So you can take Afghanistan, Iran, Papua New Guinea - these crazy, smaller nations. So one of the cool things about that is that the qualification process is very different depending on which Confederation you're in. So Europe is pretty straight forward, you go into a group, top team goes through, second goes into a playoff.

It's a very different experience if you pick, an Asian team for example, as they have a very different format, with inter-continental playoffs and that sort of thing. Playing a different team from each Confederation is almost like six modes in itself, it adds a different spin, and again, you're getting the training throughout that. So obviously, with more games, that gives you more influence and more ability to train your players, because you've got a longer time than if you just jumped to the World Cup finals.

Similarly we have Captain your Country, which again is based around the tournament, but is a very different mode, in that you're playing as an individual, creating yourself or taking an existing professional. If you take an existing professional the whole mode is based around starting in the B-Team and working your way through the ranks. So if you pick a profession we bill it as ‘coming back from injury' and reduce their stats - it wouldn't make sense if Rooney started in the B-Team. It's a very interesting mode and a unique way to play because there's a local multiplayer. It really comes into its own if you're playing with a few buddies on the same console. You create your player, you start in the B-Team. By virtue of a good performance and a man-of-the-match performance you'd work your way up the ladder in the eyes of the manager.

The ultimate goal of the whole mode is to see yourself picked as captain and to see yourself lifting the World Cup at the Maracanã. But that creates an interesting spin, when you're playing local multiplayer you're all in it for the long haul, your ultimate goal is to get England to the World Cup finals, but at the same time your friends are also your direct competitors in the eyes of the manager.

So it creates and interesting dynamic and way to play, because you could just cross to your friend for the easy tap-in, but you might think "do I really want to do that?" Because that'll increase his match rating, make him look good in the eyes of the manager, so maybe you take the shot on yourself and miss, and all the repercussions of that. It creates an interesting dynamic. Yes, you're in it together, but at the same time you're competing with your friends. So there's usually a lot of colourful language when you're playing in that mode.

That sounds like the real England team; trying to play together at the same time as trying to stand out and look good individually...

Yeah, it does a little bit [laughing], and it does create that colourful language we get on the field in the real world as well.

So then we've got the Story of Qualifying. That's a scenario based mode based on real-world qualifying events in the run up to the World Cup. For example, Ukraine vs France, in that night in Paris where they came back from what was it, a 2-0 deficit in the first leg?

So there's over 60 modes in that and it's a mode to really showcase just how big the World Cup is. Especially for casuals, who might just pick it up and play as England and want to win the World Cup. There's a lot of other teams with this mode that they might not ordinarily use. It allows us to showcase the effort we put into making some of those smaller nations. So if you play as Fiji, in one of their qualifying events you'll get to see a minimal desert island stadium, whereas ordinarily you might not come across that if you just focussed on England.

All of that feeds into unlocks, there's Story of Qualifying unlocks, you can unlock England's entire Road to the World Cup, and we do that for all the major teams as well. And that's scenario based, so we're not just starting off at kick off, we'll throw you in at ten minutes left and you've got to turn around a 2-0 deficit, we'll throw you in as a key player and have you recreate his historic performance. So that's a unique way to play, as we're throwing you in at free kicks and penalties etc etc.

And what about the online space, what's coming there for people who prefer to stay away from playing the AI?

In online we've got Skill Games and Kick Off, and Kick Off in itself has a different spin, in that you can play every single mode in Kick Off as a particular match type, and they are unlocked as you progress through the World Cup, so when you go in you can play group stage games as Kick Off games and get all the presentation around that. But once you get through to the final of the World Cup and win it, you can then unlock that match type in Kick Off. From then on you can go in and play your friend as the World Cup final, just in Kick Off, with all the glitz and glamour, and if you win it you get to see yourself win the World Cup. So even in Kick Off we've added additional functionality where you can play each match as a specific match type. And as I say, we've also got Skill Games as well, and a whole bunch of new ones of them.

We've obviously got the online World Cup, with the ability to play from the group stage to the final against online opponents, because as we know, playing online and beating a human opponent is a better experience than just playing the AI. So online was a big focus for us. Online World Cup is a pretty difficult mode to beat, as you can imagine; once you've beaten the group stages, you've then got to win four back-to-back games against online opponents, so that can be quite a difficult mode to win.

We've created mini-achievements within that. So say you pick England, when you go into this mode you'll see the community average of those playing as England. So there you've got a mini-goal, it's not just about winning the World Cup, your goal is to be an above average player with England. Say the community is - unsurprisingly - getting to the quarter finals with England and then getting knocked out on penalties.

Shocking. That'll never happen in our lifetimes.

So that would give them a mini-achievement. We'll also compare you with your friends, and see how your friends do in that mode, and you can see how they've done with England. So again you can see if you're the best of your friends with that team. We also show your current best, how far you've got. So maybe you get to the quarter finals, and instantly you're asking "can I get further than I've ever got before?" So we've created mini-scenarios within that mode. It's not just all about winning.

We've then got a mode called Road to Rio de Janeiro, and that's in part to make the online space a little more friendly, because as I mentioned with Online World Cup, it can be a little daunting. So Road to Rio de Janeiro is a mode that allows you to win a few and lose a few. You can get to your goal by any means necessary, you don't have to reset if you lose a few. It's kind of a Seasons-based mode, but we put a World Cup spin on it.

We've got twelve divisions, each one of them is represented by an official World Cup stadium. You start off in Manaus (as England will) and the idea is you work along the road, promoted out of that division. You get to the next stadium, and it's a road leading to the Maracanã in Rio. You have a set target to get out of that division. In the first one it's very easy, I think it's like ten points in ten games, so you can win six in a row and still get out if you lose the last four. Once you get out, the criteria for moving on gets a little bit more difficult, and then also opens up criteria for relegation, so if you don't get the minimum amount then you move backwards. So there's movement back and forth along the road, as you move along the presentation improves, so once you get to the Maracanã you get all the glitz and glamour of the World Cup. When you win that final division you'll see yourself actually winning the World Cup. So that's a much more forgiving mode.

It's a really good mode for showcasing Brazil as a host nation, because you'll learn about the stadiums. As you progress out you'll unlock artwork and information about each of the cities (each has its own look and art it's commissioned). It really showcases Brazil as a venue, again, it's such an important part of what the World Cup is.

We then have online friendlies in the online space. That was a mode driven entirely by the community, we hadn't planned to actually put that in, but we got a lot of feedback on the forum because it was taken out of FIFA, so we put that in specifically for those guys.

We've got Story of Finals which is online in the sense that it's a mode which unlocks when the tournament takes place, and the idea is that when you've watched a real World Cup game, within about an hour to an hour and a half time frame, you can go to our game and replay that event in our game. The idea is we really want to capture that emotion, that passion, that you've just witnessed in the real world, and make our game the go to place after the real world place.

One of the cool things we've done this year, we had this previously in the last World Cup game, but it was very limited in that we had one daily challenge, and once that was done, it was overwritten by the next day, so basically you just had an ever-present challenge that you could compete for those day's fixtures. This time we're actually keeping everything, so as the tournament progresses this mode essentially becomes a calendar, a scrapbook of what happened in the real world. And ultimately when you get to the final, you'll be able to go back and play every single game in the real world tournament. It's kind of a memoir of what when on, which is a cool new feature.

Will you all be staying in the office and watching the games together, so you can update the game as the talking points happen?

Yeah, absolutely. We've got a whole team who'll be watching. It's a labour of love, if you like. They'll be picking predefined, interesting moments. And then they'll be setting that up. We've got the QA running, that's why it takes a little bit [of time to get it] in the game, because there's a buffer of creating these, testing them, making sure it works. We'd love to be able to do it instantly, but there's the danger then that things don't work.

We both know about the heartache of World Cup penalties. What exactly are you doing to make them more impactful and representative of the real game?

As England fans we know to our peril just how important penalties are in the World Cup. The whole thing's been won on a penalty shootout in the past, so they become much more meaningful than they do in FIFA. We wanted to improve them, and we've done it on many levels. So one is driven by community feedback, and this is particularly leaning towards the 50% of users that are brand new. Some people didn't find [penalties] very intuitive. A lot of people didn't get that mechanic, unless you went and played the mini-game.

So we've changed it, but key to that was that we didn't break it for returning FIFA users. So interestingly FIFA users will probably not feel any different (well, they will if they've played the mini-game, but at the same time we didn't want to completely change the core mechanic). So we've changed it that when you've kicked top left it will now stop top left, and now the skill becomes stopping the aiming bar right in the middle of the green. If you miss that, you're still going to shank it into row Z, but if you hit that straight on it will go where you point it. It's much more intuitive, new users get it, it's much more forgiving. We felt that penalties - I'm not sure on real world stats - but 80/90% is in favour of the kick taker, and so it should be an easy way to score. What we were finding in FIFA is that it wasn't, it wasn't even close to those kind of stats, particularly for those casual gamers.

On the other side of things we've also improved the goalkeepers; they were a little bit dumb in the past. There's all-new AI for the goalkeepers. So an example of that is; so if you guessed bottom left, it'll lock into a superman stretch dive bottom left, but if the ball actually went just above him he wouldn't react to it. Now there's a much [higher] level of intelligence in that he's got secondary reactions. So in that instance I just described, instead of locking into a pre-defined dive, he can now reach up post-shot and try and make a secondary save. There's a level of intelligence we haven't had before, he's now not a stupid dummy who just goes where you tell him, he'll try and react, try and kick out with his legs and all this kind of stuff. So that puts more power in the keeper as well.

Because the essence of a penalty shootout is all about that battle of nerves, you know any professional footballer should hammer it in every time, and sometimes you wonder how they missed; it's all about nerve at the end of the day. So we've added a little back and forth there, a little mind games, by adding keeper antics to the face buttons. So it gives a little more interest when you're controlling a keeper. You can now move up and down your line, and perform these kind of waving your arms and making yourself look big, where he points to a particular point in the goal where he thinks the kick taker should hit it to, almost taunting him to put it in that area. So it just adds a little bit more fun and mind games to penalty kicks, and ultimately just make them that bit more rewarding and much more of a mini-game.

For me, one of the things that defines the World Cup is the craziness that sometimes unfolds on the field, with things like the clashes between players, the scorpion kicks, the infamous handballs. How are you bringing this unpredictable element to your game?

Well, we've improved gameplay, and so that's not so much the craziness of the World Cup, but more that the World Cup is a representation of the world's best players, it's the cream of the crop. If you're playing in the World Cup you've reached the pinnacle of all football. So we've done that by improving gameplay, it feels a lot tighter and more responsive. And that was driven a lot by the feedback we got from the community. Some people felt [FIFA 14] was a little bit sloppy in that there was the trap error that wasn't in your control, where you'd get that back and forth change of possession in the centre of the park. So we tightened all that up. Trapping error is still there, but we've toned it down.

We've made passing a lot more quick and responsive, so it's a lot quicker to get the ball to your players. We've got a feature that we've wrapped in the name of 'Explosive Player Movement' and that essentially is making the players act a lot quicker, reducing the lag factor that some people found in FIFA 14. Players will accelerate and decelerate faster, turn quicker. So all of that, it's not the craziness of the World Cup, but it's effort we've put in to make the World Cup feel very different. Part of that is 100 new animations. There's now better ways to take the ball down: We've got side takedowns. We've got something we call the ‘samurai kick', which is kind of like launching your foot backwards and passing it with the back of your foot. You mentioned the scorpion kick, that is in the game, although it's very hard to do (and that was in FIFA as well). So we've upped the flair of what these players can do, but the dramatic, controversial stuff, the [Zindane] headbutt, Suarez's infamous handball on the line, we haven't added anything like that specifically. We don't want to over-dramatise it and make it feel scripted, so none of that has really been added. We've left the drama in the hands of the users.

What about Women's football? Would there be a better time to introduce it to FIFA than during a World Cup year, with all the additional exposure and new users coming to the franchise?

Ladies have their own World Cup, which is actually happening in Canada. Vancouver, where I am, is going to be one of the host cities, so that should be exciting. In terms of introducing that, potentially with more emphasis on the ladies, the worry with the World Cup is that it would be trampled with the World Cup; it's all about the men's game and all the rest of it, it might be eclipsed by what the World Cup tournament is.

Ladies football in itself is something that we often discuss here as it is growing. There's certain key territories where it's massive. In the US they're real stars over here, the ladies team. In Canada it's big, I think in Germany it's pretty big. So it's definitely on the rise and it's something that we - time and resources allowing - would love to get in.

One of the challenges is to do it properly though, and authenticity is key for us, it is a lot of work. It's not just a case of throwing up a female character on a male body. We do motion capture, it's all very authentic movement that we have in the game, and obviously women move differently to men, so I think if we just throw a female character on a male body, it wouldn't really look right.

If we were to do it we'd want to do it properly, and make it feel very different. Do it justice. So if you can imagine, we've got an absolute back catalogue from years and years of motion capture data. To do it, it shouldn't be underestimated. That's not to say we won't at some point, like I say, it's something we would look to do, but it is potentially a bigger undertaking than it might first seem, and if we want to do it we'd want to do it authentically, because authenticity is key for FIFA.

A lot of your core fans will have upgraded the new-gen consoles just so they could play the new and improved version of FIFA 14. What are you doing for them, and what will they be playing during the summer?

So there will be an offering for those players in the form of Ultimate Team, and there will be more announcements for that in the coming weeks. I can't really talk to that, there will be an announcement through the official channels.

Let's talk about why it isn't on next-gen, because that's a question a lot of people are asking. The reason being is simple, we have a certain amount of resources we can devote to the World Cup. With those resources we wanted to get the game to as many people as we possibly could. As the world stands right now as in gaming, that is still by far and away PS3 and 360. They're the most prolific consoles the world over. Obviously over time that will change, and you would think Gen4 would overtake, at which point those decisions will then flip, but right now the most people have PS3 and 360s.

And another big part of that is emerging markets are key areas for us. Particularly relevant this time around as one of those emerging markets is Brazil, and were we to do it just on Gen4, would we not be able to get it to as many people, but we would alienate the host nation, which is obviously something we don't want to do. Because Gen4 penetration down there is practically zero - I think they have some crazy tax on consoles and I think someone told me they're in the region of $1800 dollars to get a console. At its simplistic core it's to get it to as many people as we possibly could, and part of that people is the Brazilians. 

Considering you're working across two different generations now, what's next for FIFA? Where can you take the franchise?

Looking ahead, the future for FIFA is very bright. There's no new FIFA that's been announced, but should that actually come... Gen4 is an exciting area; new consoles open up new doors, new creativity allows us to do more. Particularly with World Cup, we've pushed Gen3 consoles to the limit, we've crammed so much in with new presentation and all the rest of it, so in terms of the future obviously Gen4 is an exciting prospect, in that it opens doors to new things we weren't able to do in the past. So the future of football gaming and FIFA is a very exciting one right now.

And finally, I have to ask. You spend a lot of time looking at stats and simulations, how do you think England will do, and who do you think will win the WC?

It's a tough one, I don't think we'll do very well. I'd like to see us go for it, not defend and play for a draw. The worst thing we could do is go out there, play negative and go out anyway. So, we should go out, play exciting football, blood in the new guys, and go out in the quarter finals. I don't think England are going to do that much if I'm brutally honest. I think Belgium are a dark horse, if we can still call them that. We've seen how good they are.

I'm with you on that, they've got a great group of players this year. They're my dark horse too.

It's interesting when we play the game here, and we have tournaments between the team, and you see how many times Belgium pops up, so I think they're a lot of people's second choice. There's no kind of blood feud with Belgium and any of the major teams.

Ultimately I think it's down to two teams, one of them obviously being Brazil, with the fans behind them and the whole support. If they get off to a good start they could be unstoppable. The one team I could see doing them, and this depends how the draw works out obviously, but Argentina is probably the second most motivated, and I think man for man are probably a better team than Brazil. But they've got the added motivation of winning it in their arch-nemesis' back yard, it would make them legends in their own right. They could potentially be the party poopers, they've got a lot to play for. I don't think a European team's going to do it. I think Spain, people are starting to suss them out and they're ageing a little bit. It'd be amazing if they did it; Euro, World Cup, Euro, World Cup would be an achievement like never before, so they do have their own motivation as going down as the best team in history if they can do that. But, if push comes to shove, I'd go with Brazil.

2014 FIFA World Cup Brazil is heading to PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 on April 17, just under two months before the start of the tournament in Brazil, which kicks off on June 12.