With FIFA 23, the last FIFA of all times is released this week – and it looks fantastic on the PC. But can it also convince in terms of gameplay?
There it is, the last FIFA from EA Sports. FIFA 23 marks the end of an almost thirty-year era that began in 1993 with FIFA International Soccer on Super Nintendo, Mega Drive & Co. The end is not, of course, because the series has been stagnating for years and therefore last year had to take the worst GlobalESportNews rating in the series history with 69 rating points. Rather, EA and FIFA unsuccessfully fought over the cost of the brand name, which is why EA”s next football game will bear the somewhat bumpy name EA Sports FC.
It”s certainly a strange feeling for long-time fans of the series – especially if the licensing world football association FIFA is going to publish its own FIFA game as announced. So, not only under these special circumstances, it would be desirable that EA”s last FIFA can really excite us once again, so that we keep the series in good memory. And at least we PC players can look forward to a lot of improvements compared to last year”s game.
Table of Contents
FIFA is finally getting pretty
The biggest and most important improvement for us is that we no longer have to do without all the features of the PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series versions. Finally the PC is on par and FIFA 23 looks miles better on PC than it did twelve months ago.
I can tell you straight away: During my first game, my jaw dropped repeatedly. Especially on a big ultrawide monitor FIFA 23 fires a real spectacle graphically. Players, stadiums and the whole presentation around them have clearly gained in detail, even if FIFA 23 does not look noticeably better than its predecessor on screenshots.
The real star is Hypermotion 2: This technology replaces the classic motion capturing, was previously reserved for the next-gen consoles and is now celebrating its debut on the PC. I will spare you the technical details here – what is much more important is how well the whole thing works.
Thanks to Hypermotion, players move noticeably more realistically across the court. Regardless of whether it”s running, tackling or receiving the ball – in comparison to FIFA 22, all animations appear smoother and merge seamlessly. By the way, this does not only apply to the player with the ball. Our defenders put their hands behind their backs before the enemy”s crosses to avoid handball, or turn their backs towards the attacker before shooting. Such details were missing until now and now contribute noticeably to the immersion.
Although some animation phases still look quite unnatural, for example when you switch from walking to sprinting with a fast player. But there are no more really big conspicuous features like in previous years. If you play a deadly pass behind the opponent”s defence, for example, the defenders no longer all turn around at the same time with the same animation.
Besides the great animations, there”s another star – the pitch itself! The field is no longer completely flat and looks like a green carpet, but there are now real, moving blades of grass. You can”t see them in the running game, but you can see them in the slow-motion sequences. But what you always see: A hard tackle often leaves furrows or swirls up clods of earth that don”t disappear until the final whistle. This may sound rather unspectacular when you read it, but I am sure that the turf and the “damage model” will catch your eye when you play the game yourself.
Or just watch this game with my VfL Wolfsburg from the career mode!
FIFA remains FIFA
Hypermotion also has a direct impact on the gameplay experience: At least in offline matches, the technology promotes a significantly slower and more methodical gameplay experience . Smart passes, tactical decisions and positioning of your players play a much bigger role. Thinking three passes ahead sounds challenging, but now pays off.
Thinking three passes ahead sounds challenging, but now pays off.
Although you can actually call FIFA a football simulation again due to the slowed down tempo, it partly encounters the same problems that already troubled Konami”s eFootball. Players now often seem a bit sluggish and stiff in the hips, so that dribbling with the left controller stick rarely leads to success.
Even a small technician like Josip Brekalo, whose strengths definitely include his agility and reaction speed, plays more like defensive guard Alexander Madlung … after his career ends. Okay, maybe it”s not quite that bad. But the more realistic animations often make it seem as if all the players suddenly have a noticeable turning circle and are wading through tar.
On the other hand, FIFA”s most popular game mode Ultimate Team (FUT) paints a completely different picture: Here the speed is clearly higher, which is especially due to the team composition of our enemies. In FIFA 23, speed is once again the most important characteristic in order to emerge successfully from a match.
And this is also reflected in the game experience, because here my unloved feeling of an arcade kick comes up again. The opposing players run at you as if stung by a tarantula, because pressing with these sprinters trimmed to top speed once again simply proves to be too effective a tool. Even if you manage to steal the ball from their feet, you can”t feel safe. Often the ball ends up back in the hands of the faster player due to strange mini-rebounding, which often drove me crazy in previous installments of the series.
I have to say at this point that I”m absolutely no beginner: I win games against the AI on the difficulty level World Class without any problems and also in Ultimate Team I reach the Elite Division year after year. But that”s only possible if I bow to the meta-game and pack my team with lightning-quick players with strong dribbling skills.
My strongest player in my Ultimate Team during the test was Toni Kroos, who I was able to pull out of one of the free packs. After the positive impressions of the offline game, I had hopes of using this world-class player as a playmaker and pace-setter in midfield. However, after a handful of games I was already able to do away with this – with 53 speed he is simply too slow in most game situations, not competitive and literally a burden for my team
Those who have played FUT before will feel right at home. There is dribbling, trickery and of course a lot of running again, short passing is the order of the day and is often crowned with a deadly pass into the run of the striker – only prettier than ever before
Two exciting gameplay improvements
As it does every year, FIFA has a few new additions on board, some of which are hidden behind fancy names and are meant to add variety to the familiar gameplay experience.
The most discussed new addition in the run-up to the game was the Power Shot, with which you can hit the ball into the goal with maximum force. The application is simple in theory: simply hold down RB + LB (Xbox pad) or L1+R1 (PlayStation pad), charge up your shot and aim it towards the goal – and the ball zips into the net.
Okay, it”s not quite that simple after all: The powerful shot takes time and space, plus you have to manually set the desired direction. Just aiming roughly into the desired corner, as with normal shots, does not apply. If you charge one too long, are disturbed by the opponent or simply aim badly, the shot can go into the stands. But if the risk pays off and you hit a real cracker into the mesh, the joy is great and you even get the shot speed displayed in the subsequent replay.
For me, the Power Shot is a cool feature that I like to resort to when the situation presents itself. But whether it can also be game-changing in online matches is questionable because of the high tempo.
The best innovation for me, however, are the revised standard situations, which have been simplified considerably. With the left stick you determine the trajectory of the ball for corners and free kicks, with the right stick you adjust it further. So you can now intuitively cut balls or sensitively lob them over the wall, which pleasantly reminds series veterans of the innocent early FIFA phase.
The awkward twisting around of the right stick as the player goes to shoot is finally redundant. Penalties are also much easier with the new system. The new standards are a real hit with me.
What”s happening in career mode & Co.?
What doesn”t convince me, however, are the changes to the career mode: Even though EA offers some fresh features here, they don”t have a big impact on the familiar gameplay. The fact that we can now not only create our own manager and instead slip into the skin of Kloppo, Pep and other successful coaches is nice – but ultimately has no effect on the game.
The other innovations, such as additional cutscenes or transfer analyses, are not the best thing in the world either. I skip the former anyway, after having seen them several times, and the latter have little to do with an analysis: If you had negotiated better, you could have got two million more for the sale of Max Kruse! – Well, thanks for the feedback.
Only the playable moments
are a really great addition: Here you no longer have to complete entire games, but only some key scenes such as dangerous attacks or standard situations. If you want to progress quickly with your career, but don”t want to have every game simulated straight away, you”ll find a thoroughly worthwhile alternative here
In the other modes like Pro Clubs, FUT and Volta (street football) you can look for the noteworthy innovations with a magnifying glass. Ultimate Team now offers moments, which are small challenges that are completed in a few seconds. Sometimes you have to take a free kick, sometimes you have to fend off a counterattack or pass the ball five times. Well, yes.
Further, FIFA has increased the amount of women in the game: Just like in real life, there are now female referees officiating men”s games as well as many new licensed women”s teams. If you don”t like women”s football, you can just ignore it. But the fact that women”s football is now getting a stage in such a successful game, which is especially popular with the younger audience, I see as an important step in the right direction.
For whom is FIFA 23 worthwhile?
FIFA 23 is, despite all the criticism, currently the best football game on the PC: You get a huge package of dozens of game modes, licensed players and clubs and, finally, really nice graphics again. In addition, the rock-solid gameplay core of last year”s version has been greatly improved, even if not quite perfected. But when it comes to realism on the pitch, EA has now caught up with Konami, which is admittedly also due to eFootball”s lack of form.
As already mentioned, this of course only applies to offline modes such as Career. Ultimate Team remains Ultimate Team. Here, as always, everything revolves around speed and fast players. And as in previous years, the Pay2Win factor is blatant: If you want, you can invest hundreds or thousands of euros in packs here to get the chance to draft top players like Mbappé or legends like Gerd Müller for your team, who make a huge difference in terms of play.
While it is possible to play Ultimate Team successfully without real money stakes, those who reach for the credit card have advantages in any case. Even if you only get unusable players (such as Toni Kroos), you can sell them for coins on the transfer market and then use the proceeds to get the stars. Playing against pay2win teams can be frustrating and tempting to reach for your wallet yourself. Always be aware of this. Or just ignore FIFA Ultimate Team altogether.
FIFA 23 delivers a really fat football package even without the controversial mode. And unlike the NBA 2K series, there are no rating-relevant microtransactions beyond FUT, which is why we only devalue the overall package by 5 points.
Those who buy every year anyway can do so without hesitation with FIFA 23. For fans of career mode and the like, the switch to the latest version is finally worthwhile again, because the leap to next-gen technology makes the basic gameplay noticeably more realistic. However, you can”t expect any groundbreaking innovations off the pitch. But somehow it would have been strange if the last FIFA of all things had surprised us here.
Editor”s conclusion
On the one hand, as a long-time pro-evolution soccer fanboy (not eFootball!), I”m completely blown away by FIFA 23. It finally plays the way you want it to as a football purist. Slower, more tactical, more realistic. But that only applies to the offline mode.
In Ultimate Team, the action is once again much faster. Yes, that also has its charm and is quite fun. And it”s probably exactly what many of FIFA 23”s millions of FUT players want – just a fresh start to the new season of the same trading card madness.
I have to admit that I actually think the principle of Ultimate Team is great. Building up a strong team of likeable players over the months remains a cool idea in theory, if it didn”t degenerate into an arcadian Pay2Win rip-off again this year. In my dreams, I”d love an Ultimate Team with the same tactical gameplay as the offline modes and no microtransactions. Naive? Me? Where did you come up with that!?
So FIFA 23 delivers what was to be expected: a chic, enormously extensive, mature gameplay, but also lacking in innovation, which is at its best when you play with friends on the sofa. And which can keep you entertained for months even if you completely ignore Ultimate Team. No more, but also no less.
