EA Sports FC 24

After almost 30 years of marriage, EA and FIFA went their separate ways a year and a half ago. EA has therefore decided to call the latest instalment in their popular football game series EA Sports FC 24, but if you were hoping that the name change would result in a fresh start, you'll be disappointed. EA boasts plenty of new features, but on closer inspection, they seem more like patch notes than real improvements.

The most notable of the new features is arguably the updated version of HyperMotion. The technology was introduced back in FIFA 22 and helped to make the game's animations more realistic, as all movements were modelled on an extensive archive of video footage. Last year's HyperMotion2 further refined the experience, and now EA is jumping a few digits and introducing HyperMotion V.

Unfortunately, the numerical quantum leap is not reflected on the pitch, as you quickly realise that EA Sports FC 24 is in many ways a less polished version of FIFA 23. Let's start with the positives though. The players have a satisfying weight to them, and this is noticeable both when attacking and defending. At the same time, tackles and aerial duels are no longer just clashes of underlying stats, and their outcome depends just as much on how well you time your jump or tackle. Momentum is key and thanks to improved animations, players can really be sent flying if they are hit by late tackles or a charging goalkeeper.

You now have more control over your crosses thanks to AI True Flight Ball Physics. It sounds a bit more revolutionary than it is, but EA has worked to make the ball's flight more natural, and it's especially noticeable when you're trying to hit hard, curling crosses. It's almost like going from mortar shells to goal-seeking missiles, but it also requires your players to have the necessary skills.

Whether your players are able to strike accurate crosses or trick opponents with dribbles depend not only on stats, but also on the new PlayStyles - archetypes that provide extra abilities in areas such as technique, blocking, tackling or heading. The game's biggest stars like Haaland, Mbappé and Rúben Dias have even more powerful abilities called PlayStyles+, but don't expect superpowers like the ones you can activate in the street football mode Volta. In fact, PlayStyles is so hard to spot in battle that the game marks each time a player uses a signature move with a small icon.

On paper it sounds great, but as the classic FIFA commentator John Motson told us way back in FIFA 2001, football matches aren't won on paper. In this way, EA Sports FC 24 is a lot like the real-life Chelsea FC. Sure, the game contains plenty of systems that either already impress or show great potential in isolation. But there's clearly a lack of an overall plan and vision. That's why the expensive Chelsea side are languishing in the bottom half of the Premier League, and it's also why EA Sports FC 24 simply isn't much fun to play.

The problems have been the same ever since the switch from the Ignite to Frostbite game engine back in FIFA 17: Overly tight ball control and ultra-precise passing that removes any sense of realism. But in addition to this overarching problem, we've now also ended up with the game's different systems starting to work against each other. Personally, I'm a big fan of the extra weight that AcceleRATE 2.0 adds to sprints and dribbles. But the system also means that as a defender, you're often skating past the player you're trying to stop, and the problem only gets worse by the fact that the ball is often glued to the attackers' feet. I could almost hear the braking sound from Sonic the Hedgehog when I frantically tried to stop my defenders.

At the same time, the new systems and additions exhibit a number of problems. Several times, even small collisions led to excessive falling animations, and the AI for both your own and opposing players sometimes tend to run in circles around each other while forgetting all about the ball. The goalkeepers, who have been greatly improved in the last few games, are now all trying to outdo Emiliano Martínez's heroics from the World Cup final and throw themselves out of the goal like with outstretched limbs. It looks spectacular but is rarely very effective, and in general they often struggle to find the right position between the sticks, resulting in far too many easy goals. It all feels unbalanced, messy and disjointed, best illustrated by the game's uneven difficulty level, where most experienced players will probably be caught in the bottomless chasm between World Class and Legendary.

The game's pulse - the illusion that you're playing the real thing - is unfortunately quite weak, and several times it flatlines completely, when the game's many bugs and glitches show their ugly face. It's great fun that you can now watch replays when the game is paused or see referees booking players in first person. But all this doesn't mean much when the scoreboard and HUD elements go on strike, player models entangle, or the camera suddenly jumps erratically. Normally I can accept these kinds of errors when playing an early review copy, but for a game that builds on FIFA 23, FIFA 22, FIFA 21 and so on, it's simply not acceptable.

However, it's often the case that the FIFA games that don't make much progress on the pitch introduce new game modes or upgrades off the pitch. Unfortunately, EA Sports FC 24 also disappoints badly in this regard, and the improvements are so few and insignificant that you'd think it was a Legacy Edition for the previous console generation, not the developer's flagship title for PC, Xbox Series X and PlayStation 5.

Career is probably still where most people will spend their time offline. EA has tried to trim the fat from some of the systems that have been introduced over the past few years, and you now (thankfully) don't have to manually practise every other day. Instead, you can hire a team of coaches who already specialise in a so-called Vision - an overarching tactical approach such as Tiki-Taka, Gegenpressing or, the mother of all tactics, Park the Bus. It makes the gameplay loop more fluid than before, but like almost all other newer systems - whether we're talking about the graphical simulation or individual player training programmes - it's just time-consuming enough to be annoying, without being deep enough to actually feel satisfying.

If you want to lace up your own boots, you can opt for the Player Career instead which got a major overhaul last year. It's still pretty fun, but the only meaningful addition is an agent feature where you can pick a future club and, by achieving goals, work your way closer to your dream transfer. And while PlayStyles now lets you mould your player even further, you still go from benchwarmer to world star way too quickly.

If we take the action online, Clubs and Volta Football have received so few improvements that you'll have to look for them with a five-star chief scout. On the other hand, the money machine Ultimate Team has received more changes. Evolutions lets you develop your cards and can, in principle, create a greater connection to your ragtag team of players from all leagues and eras. The connection to your squad and your fictional club has often been a bit lacking, so this is a welcome improvement.

The most controversial change has been that you can now play with both men and women on the same team in Ultimate Team. Some would (rightly) say that it's not realistic for female players to have the same level and attributes as their male counterparts. But in a game where Messi and Ronaldo can play alongside deceased legends like Lev Yashin and Diego Maradona, where 7-5 is a more frequent score than 0-0, and where players are signed to your club via card packs, it seems almost silly to talk about realism. While I won't criticise EA for their inclusion of female players in Ultimate Team, I won't praise them either, as there are only five female leagues and a handful of national teams outside of the mode. Since the rights to women's sports must be ridiculously cheap compared to what EA pays for men's football, this is just too meagre an offering.

The model of annual updates for sports games has long been debated, but EA and other developers have often defended themselves by claiming that they were delivering a better product with more features. That's simply not the case this year. On the pitch, despite better animations and a few nice additions, the game is messier than before, and off the pitch we're missing the classic music tracks and World Cup modes that helped make FIFA 23 a fairly impressive overall package. EA has seemingly spent more resources on marketing the new name than improving the formula, and it's therefore very hard to recommend EA Sports FC 24 to all but the most dedicated fans.