FIFA 23 expands its career mode again this year with more features. But it is still questionable whether the mode really gains in quality as a result.
For several years, the career mode in FIFA has been a headache. There are still many players who feel at home here and want to lead their club to fame and fortune as a coach. The career mode has always been a home for people who need an additional, strategic component besides fast-paced games on the green field. Those who not only think about formation and moves, but also want to build an efficient squad with possibly limited funds – or simply want to develop their own player into a world star.
But people often complain about this mode, because EA has been putting hardly any significant development effort into it for years. There are always innovations, but in most cases they are superficial additions.
What about FIFA 23? Find out what new additions are planned this year and what that means for the popular mode
Table of Contents
General innovations
As expected the career mode in FIFA 23 is again divided into a career for managers and a career for players. Depending on the categories, different innovations have been introduced. However, there are improvements that are important in both variants.
Playable Highlights
A great strength of FIFA compared to more complex manager games has always been the dynamic change between simulation and gameplay. Now it is possible to intervene almost fluently in a game that is simulated in fast forward most of the time. With FIFA 23 there will be another option. The so-called playable highlights.
This is a simulation in which we play through a certain number of match-deciding scenes per game. Instead of simulating the whole game, FIFA 23 throws us directly into the tricky situations. Thus, goal-area scenes are played through, or important standards are shot. These highlights are to be generated dynamically and depend on factors such as the context of the game or the strength of the teams.
Dynamic moments
Last year, more personality was brought into the game with small cutscenes in the professional locker room. FIFA 23 introduces even more of these atmospheric scenes. This time the dynamic moments revolve around important events in the life of our player or the coach. For example, there is now an animated scene when our player is called up to the starting eleven for the first time. In addition, should we complete a major transfer, this will also be depicted in a cutscene.
A new main menu
A rather unspectacular but possibly helpful improvement concerns the main menu. The menu for the career mode in FIFA 23 has been made a little bit clearer and they tried to reduce the time we spend navigating through the windows. But the best thing is to have a look at the new menu yourself:
The Manager Career
Transfer Analyses
A new feature concerns the transfers we make as manager of a club. So all purchases and sales in FIFA 23 will be evaluated by a rating. So we get an overview if this transfer was worthwhile for us (at least according to the statistics). All transfers are graded with letters, as we know it from training. If a purchase is graded with a D, FIFA tells us that it was not a good deal.
In practice, however, the system can also be wrong, because the player could still be a bombshell. The system also reveals how cheap we really could have got a player, which should improve our negotiating skills.
Authentic managers
For the first time we are allowed to take over the role of a real coach in FIFA 23. FIFA has been introducing character models for famous coaches for a few years now. So we see Pep Guardiola brooding on the sidelines or experience Jürgen Klopp jumping for joy. Now we can also take on these great personalities in career mode. So that makes it possible to transfer Kloppo or Antonio Conte to your favourite club.
Better financial management
Another feature revolves around how you manage your funds. In the new finance screen, there should now be much more accurate information about how the association”s assets are made up. So you know how much profit you have made through transfers and what part results directly from sporting successes. But there is no longer an exact distinction between the transfer budget and the salary budget. The information remains the same, you just don”t have to move a slider anymore.
The Player”s Career
Last year there was a very big focus on the player career. This year EA has come up with a lot again and offers new features to make our rise to world stardom even more emotional and comprehensible.
Personality
With FIFA 23, it”s not just physical disposition that determines what our kicker is capable of. We can now also determine the mentality that distinguishes him. Three different categories have been introduced for this purpose.
- Maverick: These players are very ambitious and want to be in the spotlight at the end of the day.
- Heartbeat: These players drive the game at its core and are the heart and engine of the whole team.
- Virtuoso: These players place very high value on football as an art, so they are true maestros and strive for footballing perfection.
Players can focus on one of these aspects or put several points into different personalities, with the style of play shaping which points are available. However, there is then always a personality that is dominant and distinguishes the player. Each personality also influences the skills, so Mavericks are often good at penalties or dribbling, while Heartbeats encourage short passing and ball control.
Activities off the court
To identify ourselves even better with our own player, activities off the pitch will be introduced in FIFA 23. With this it is possible to spend the high salary on all kinds of things. So we can buy a new flat or hire a private chef.
Depending on the activity, the player”s personality can change. Selfish purchases such as a decadent wine cellar, for example, increase the Maverick points, new training equipment contributes more Heartbeat. Training performance can also improve through these activities – but there are also supposed to be consequences. The trainer may not like a lifestyle that is too extravagant.
If your player”s salary is too low, you can also invest money and potentially get even more out of it. Or you might be unlucky and the investment won”t pay off.
Are these innovations useful?
For me FIFA has been interesting for years mainly because of the career mode and in particular I am interested in the coaching career. Here I had some really nice experiences, but for a long time the handling of this mode has been bugging me. FIFA 23 again has a nice list of innovations, but very few of them are really useful. Ok, a prettier menu is nice and the highlights are certainly fun, but in the end these are all superficial improvements. It”s more about presentation than content. Why doesn”t something change about how the coach market works in general? Why does the salary of my coach continue to be completely irrelevant? The latter could certainly have been fixed with the activities, but they are only available for players. What a pity. But now I get to look like Jürgen Klopp. Yay.
The changes to the player”s career are generally a bit more interesting, but I think that such changes to the presentation are also more useful here, as they increase the bond with my kicker. The personality also sounds exciting. I just wish there was finally a feature trophy to be won for coaches too.
