EA Sport’s mammoth FIFA franchise is a yearly juggernaut that practically owns the digital soccer scene and its Ultimate Team mode has made it hard to beat. It’s often remarked how history likes to repeat itself however, and with Konami’s Pro Evolution Soccer on the rise again, EA’s leading football title looks to be almost lagging behind its closest rival. (Buy Fifa 15 Coins PC, XBOX 360, XBOX ONE, PS3, PS4, Android, IOS Service on UTfifa15coins.)
With the latest Pro Evolution Soccer 15, Konami is making huge strides with its sim, offering top notch gameplay and sizzling graphics, meaning the Japanese dev has a football title out that can truly compete with EA’s – just like over a decade ago when PES4 left FIFA Football 2005 in the dust.
The latest title, FIFA 15, while a decent entry, is merely an incremental improvement, as not much was hugely changed over the series’ solid next-gen debut with FIFA 14. To prevent Konami eclipsing it next time round, FIFA needs a massive shake-up to the starting line-up. Here’s what we want to see arrive with this year’s FIFA 16.
Career mode needs a boost
As Ultimate Team has risen as the go-to game mode in recent FIFA editions, Career Mode has largely been neglected. FIFA 15’s career mode, whether you’re playing as your own pro or as a manager, feels like a carbon copy of the previous title, right down to the annoying email pop-ups and carbon copy transfer gossip.
How about giving you more things to do, such as letting you bring together a backroom staff, creating an actual stadium or even just interacting a lot more with your players? How about actual training sessions that boost your team and pro more than just filling quest-like containers such as 100 shots on goal to boost your shooting stats? We’d love to see the next FIFA take a page from NBA 2K15 and include some RPG elements, such as press conferences or actual conversations, where the outcome affects your pro or manager’s career.
Even some small touches could go a long way, especially for history buffs, such as being able to see cup competition history, what teams have won what titles in the past, and the history of top goal scorers, assists and so on. You already know you have other league players to beat for the Golden Boot, but how about trying to top Alan Shearer’s all-time Premier League record? How about club records, like Thierry Henry’s 228 goals at Arsenal? Make it happen EA.
Let’s see a youth system added
Starting your career as a pro puts you in the shoes of a plucky 20-year-old, but we’d rather see the clock winded back further and have you start out as a youth. That way, you’d develop your pro as you would at a real academy, letting you get a feel for different positions and have you rise through the ranks until you’re old enough to be eligible for the regular team. We’re all for more realism, and this could put it head and shoulders above the latest PES. You could even pass the time between training sessions actually playing games of FIFA – talk about meta.
Create a Player needs to be improved
When starting your own journey as a Pro, one of the first things you have to do is create your own player. It’s a quick and fairly painless exercise, but it needs more depth and customisable options, along with details that aren’t tucked away until you unlock them later on. Even small things like equipping your player with gloves should mean they only appear when the weather is cold enough, as we’re not sure about our player wearing a full length jersey with gloves in the middle of a Spanish summer.
EA has plenty to learn from other sports sim games, and even getting your own face in the game needs work – EA’s own Game Face system hasn’t been properly updated in a long while, and being able to use next-gen tech like the PlayStation 4’s or Xbox One’s Kinect to get you in the game should be a no-brainer. Let’s just hope the results aren’t as nightmare-inducing as last year’s NBA 2K15 squads.
And how about some other Create modes?
We’re able to Create a Player, but we’d love to see even more Create modes. While Ultimate Team scratches the itch to create your perfect team, you’re still at the mercy of the transfer market and luck of the draw. We’d love to be able to put together our own dream team to take through career mode, whilst letting us create our own stadiums, kit and even a mascot. And how about a chant creator?
Be a Pro boosts
Even the small things could make an impact – how about actually being able to spend your in-game salary on digital items, or being able to sit on the bench if you’re not picked to start in a game? There’s nothing like coming off the bench and putting a goal in the back of the net: we’d love the chance to be a super sub even if we can’t play the whole match.
Let’s see a First Person mode
With VR becoming bigger and bigger thanks to the likes of the Oculus Rift, isn’t it about time that EA got on the bandwagon too? And what better a game to get into it with than with FIFA? We’re picturing a first-person mode as the player that expands on the Be A Pro mode, or even a spectator mode from either the dugout or stands when you’re playing as a manager to get a true perspective of the beautiful game.
The manager needs more presence
The big man in charge is often every bit as important as a team’s top goalscorer, and the presence of huge personalities like Jose Mourinho or Arsene Wenger on the touchline adds an extra level to real football matches. We’d love to see that touched on in FIFA 16, with the manager doing more visible actions instead of just standing there like a statue and only occasionally shouting out tactics. Even Wenger’s massive jacket has more character than FIFA’s pitiful gaffers.
Take your game with you through the Cloud
Your next-gen console is designed for the long haul, so why isn’t FIFA? EA churns out its top football franchise every year, but whatever progress you make in each iteration is barely transferrable. We want to see EA let you take your career modes and pros with you through each FIFA game through the magic of the Cloud – it’d be incredibly handy to keep playing through your team’s progress from year to year, letting you enjoy all the improvements of each game with the same team and pros you’ve been building since you popped the disc in the tray. Even if you can’t carry over all your stats, we’d love to be able to take our created pros from game to game and carry on where we left off.
How about an in-game show?
FIFA 15 likes to pretend it’s its own football TV channel, but how about going a step further and adding an in-game show just like NBA 2K15? Before you tip-off, the pre-game show kicks off with Shaquille O’Neal and Ernie Johnson sat at their desks talking you through what to expect from the game, and that’s something that could be easily tapped for FIFA and brought in for half-time.
What would you add in the next version of FIFA? Let’s hear your thoughts in the comments below. To find out which FIFA games have been voted the best ever by readers, be sure to sign up to the Red Bull Games newsletter.