"There's only one way to beat them: get round the back." John Barnes' so-bad-it's-brilliant rap on classic England anthem World In Motion may be over three decades old, but many online players still adopted it as their mantra for FIFA 22. Sit deep, invite pressure, make a key block, zip three fast passes upfield, race in behind the opposition defence with a 90+ pace striker. Score, do the teacup, repeat to fade. It was the meta approach in Division Rivals and weekend league, and EA never quite found a fix.
Last week, the publisher unveiled FIFA 23. It's EA's final entry in the series, and therefore comes with the expected plethora of new features: two World Cups, two domestic women's leagues, and new Hypermotion 2 tech which saw two matches mo-capped and 6,000 animations added. Plus Sam Kerr as its first female cover star. All promising enough, as outlined in our first FIFA 23 preview. But what about those more granular year-on-year concerns? Is EA listening? Yes, insists creative director Kantcho Doskov – to the degree that community feedback informs development.
"One of the things the community said is that we're seeing teams defend too deep," says Doskov, reflecting on the response to FIFA 22. "They're dropping back into their own box and crowding the area, so it's like a goalkeeper with a wall in front of him. So we said, 'okay, obviously there are things we can improve on here'."
"We looked at our blocks and made them less perfect, so you're not always getting your foot on the ball," he explains, now looking ahead to FIFA 23. "We looked at the professional match capture that we did and fed that into our game, and worked on the positioning system of our AI. So the consequence of playing really deep is that you're going to leave yourself open to long shots. There's a risk-reward element to sitting back versus pushing up."
Falling in glove
In another switch specifically demanded by community feedback, keepers are less robotic. "We wanted to humanize our goalkeepers," says Doskov. "They looked great, but were almost superman sometimes in terms of their reflexes. We've balanced that out."
I've flown to the studio for an afternoon playing the game, and this change has me stewing before my first match is done. Manchester City stopper Ederson performs imperiously against Dortmund, only to be beaten through his legs with nine minutes to go. On the flip side, a couple of hours later I eke out a scrappy 1-0 win when the usually faultless Gigi Donnarumma fingertips a saveable effort onto the post – and over the goal line, albeit at slug-riding-turtle speed. That experience suggests keeper mistakes won't affect every match, but trigger the odd undeserved loss – and against-all-odds victory.
The long shots Doskov mentions stand out more. Hold L1 and R1 together then press the shoot button and the camera zooms in slightly on your player, before cannoning an effort towards the onion bag. It's more arcade-y then what you're used to from previous games, but quickly becomes second nature – and does indeed produce some spectacular long-distance goals when opponents sit deep. However, this mechanic is another with a risk-reward twist. It's completely unassisted, with direction entirely dependent on your left-stick deftness. I smash rockets into the stanchion – but also at the corner flag, and into Row Z.
As for those overused and abused counter tactics: it's too early to say how far the changes outlined by Doskov will affect online play. During my FIFA 23 hands-on, I get caught on the counter less, and defenders are no longer magnetized to the ball in and around the box. Phew. However, AI teams and non-elite human opponents make for a tepid litmus test. The first two weeks post-release will show whether or not EA's plan has succeeded. Associate producer Sam Rivera echoes his colleague's overtures – but also warns against reading too much into social media cacophony.
"Feedback from the community [dictates] our priorities," says Rivera. "We are a simulation game, so we try to respect simulation as much as possible. But we are also a video game, and it has to be fun."
"For instance, matches are only 12 minutes long, so players in FIFA accelerate a little bit faster than in real life," continues Rivera. "Also, there's a trade-off when it comes to acting on feedback; you may like it, but someone else may hate it. There's a lot of data that we use on how people are playing, and what's just a [social media] theory. When someone says on the internet, 'I found this new [scoring] method, it's always succeeding,' we do compare that to the data. And sometimes everyone is trying it – but no one is succeeding…"
Rivalry lessons
However FIFA 23 plays, some backlash upon release is inevitable. There are annual calls for EA to rip things up and start again, but such requests feel foolhardy in the wake of Konami's attempts to reignite gaming's most storied sporting rivalry. The Japanese publisher adopted that exact approach. Out went the esteemed history of Pro Evolution Soccer, in came the mobile-game influenced eFootball – and the end result was a sim/arcade mish-mash unfit to lace its predecessor's Predators. So, for better or for worse, the existing engine returns for FIFA 23, and no doubt EA Sports FC too.
That engine serves up some welcome surprises in our afternoon FIFA-thon. Such as player acceleration. Every player in the game now fits into one of three archetypes, with tall defenders such as Virgil van Dijk taking an extra split-second to reach top speed, but moving at pace for longer – again reducing chances of constantly being caught on the break. Hypermotion advancements mean fewer scripted-looking clashes between strikers and keepers, and markedly improve dribbling and volleying too – those new animations making the ball feel decidedly less sticky.
Less immediate are the engine's reworked set pieces. Line up your player behind a corner or free-kick and a cursor appears over the ball, enabling you to specify where you want to strike it. In this way you can impart curl, attempt a knuckleball or dink a chip – but it never feels natural during my time with the game. I'm not going to call it 'broken' because that's exactly the sort of knee-jerk feedback I lamented earlier, but there is a small concern that it's been over-engineered. No FIFA player expects to be able to emulate John Barnes' New-Order-assisted mic efforts. But, for £50+, you'd at least hope to take a free-kick like him.
FIFA 23 is one of the big new games for 2022, and it's set to release on PS5, PS4, Xbox Series X, Xbox One, and PC on September 30.
