The world might be strange and confusing, but there are still some things you can rely on. Every autumn, a chill comes into the air, the leaves begin to change color, and EA releases a new edition of FIFA, the all-conquering soccer simulation franchise.
WIRED UKThis story originally appeared on WIRED UK.
FIFA 21 arrives at a slightly odd moment for world soccer, which has been devoid of fans for more than six months in most countries. In fact, for some broadcasters, the piped in crowd noise they’re using to mimic the presence of real fans actually comes from the video game—which is one way of making sure your simulation sounds like the real thing.
In other ways, though, the game feels further from real soccer than it has in a while—particularly at the top level, where Video Assistant Referees have fundamentally changed the way goals are scored and how defenders move around the pitch. None of that is reflected in FIFA 21, which is probably a good thing on balance.
As per usual, EA has made some minor gameplay tweaks and packaged them up as exciting new features. The headlines this year are “agile dribbling,” which enables gamers with deft thumbs to press the right bumper and pull off the kind of fancy footwork that goes viral on social media. That’s in addition to “face up dribbling” and “strafe dribbling.” I’m not entirely clear on which situations you’re meant to use the different types of dribbling in, but I do know that playing against someone who knows how to use them properly is absolutely infuriating.
There’s also an emphasis on positioning—good AI players will make better use of space, dropping into pockets to make room for shots as they might in real life, for instance. Gamers will have more control over off the ball runs as well—by flicking the right stick you can trigger a teammate to go in exactly the direction you’ve envisioned before playing that killer pass. There’s even the option to lock to your current player by pressing in both sticks at the same time—ideal for surging forward with quick give and gos.
On the pitch, the graphics are the same as always, but there are some neat new animations to bring the action closer to real life—in one pleasing new tidbit, I saw Kylian Mbappe controlling a chipped through ball on his thigh before racing through to score. The collision system has been tweaked so that players will jump out of the way of slide tackles, and so your own defenders won’t perform impromptu slapstick routines during a goalmouth scramble.
