Explaining why I won’t be buying this year’s FIFA, making it the first time in a decade that I won't purchase the recent release of the FIFA franchise.
Let me begin by quickly stating that this is not meant as a review of FIFA 19, although I have played the game already and will be talking about some of the game’s features. Instead, this is meant to be a personal explanation of why I won't buy FIFA 19 this year with the hope of spurring some conversation here about the current state of the franchise.
Additionally, before diving into the nitty-gritty, let me also say that I am a massive fan of FIFA and have been for a very long time. I have bought every version of FIFA on release for the past decade. Even before that, I was going back and forth between buying FIFA and Winning 11 (Pro Evolution Soccer) every other year. I even played FIFA International Soccer on the SNES back in the early 90s. I explained that so you understand it pains me to say that I’m skipping FIFA 19 this year and here’s why.
Licensing is Not a Feature
EA’s big headlining feature for this year’s release is the addition of Champions League. Anyone who has come across any FIFA 19 related media, even in passing, is probably familiar with the addition of Champions League because it is the only thing they are advertising.
However, licensing the Champions League is NOT a feature. The fact that EA is hyping the addition of a license, which they previously had before losing it to PES, as their main feature for this year shows how little effort they have put into this year’s release.
Never before has EA tried to pitch the addition of a license as the headlining feature. With every release, EA almost always adds a few new licenses. They might even lose a few every couple of years, but we know that over the next year or so they will get new licenses back. This is how it’s always been, but EA has never tried to claim the addition of a license is a new game feature. Obtaining licenses and holding them is just the nature of any sports game. Shame on EA for trotting this out as a game feature.
I’m Over Ultimate Team & Micro-Transactions
Look, I like FUT just as much as the next FIFA fan, but I’m so over it. Since the addition of FUT back in FIFA 2013, the game mode has been the primary focus of the game, much to the disdain of fans like myself. With other game modes getting forgotten about. And yes, the online trading card game can be addictive and fun, but after half a decade of FUT, I’m over it. I’m burned out on it, and with the every game out on the market doing micro-transactions, it’s hard to get excited about FUT.
EA’s recent track record with micro-transactions has soiled a lot of gaming fans, and now with FUT once again being the only game mode that has gotten any attention this year, I’m pretty much done with micro-transactions in EA games at the moment. Additionally the game mode has just become boring and is too much of a grind anymore, which is being done on purpose to get you to spend money.
Career Mode was Murdered
Speaking of game modes, let me talk about the reason I fell in love with FIFA all those years back: Career Mode. It was career mode that turned the sports game into a mild obsession. Becoming a manager of a football club, making signings, deciding tactics, and picking the lineup each week has always been my choice of modes to play in FIFA.
Not this year. EA has officially murdered career mode. Since the addition of FUT, each year career mode, along with every other mode not FUT, has gotten little—if any—attention or love. But with each year, EA at least would make a little change to career mode. Even if it was something small like adding player training or adding release clauses in contracts, at least there was something new in career mode each year. But NOT this year. That’s right, career mode is 100% completely unchanged since last year’s game.
This is the final knife blow in the back of FIFA fans. EA is giving everyone who doesn’t shell out loads of money in FUT a big middle finger. They are saying: unless you plan on playing FUT, we don’t care about you.
Unless EA can attach a constant revenue stream to a game mode, they aren’t interested in it. This is the final straw for the game. It would not surprise me if we never see another career mode update or EA might even decide to drop the mode completely out of the game. EA has had a long, long history of taking features and modes out of FIFA.
Alex Hunter Isn’t Great
In the place of a robust career mode, EA has once again decided to stick with the Alex Hunter story mode. It was a novel idea three years ago when they first introduced it but has since become stale and uninteresting. Even EA are aware of this—hence the addition of 2 new playable characters alongside Alex Hunter. EA knew people were getting bored of The Journey, so they tried to stretch the mode out another year by adding 2 new players.
As I said, when they first added the The Journey with Alex Hunter, I thought it was a clever idea. EA could tell the personal stories that are experienced everyday off the pitch by world footballers and give players a new glance into the sport. However, once I began to spend time with the mode, I realized this wasn’t the case at all.
Having played single player story modes in sports games like MLB The Road to the Show and story mode in the NBA2K series, the Alex Hunter story mode in FIFA pales in comparison to other sports games' story modes. FIFA's is among the worse--if not the very worse. Instead of the mode being a detailed behind the scenes playable story where you get to live the footballer's life, what we actually got was more akin to a poorly written footballing made-for-TV movie. The player has very little influence, if any at all, over the over-arching narrative of the game mode. There are a few surface level choices to make, what team to play for or what response you will have to a plot point, but these choices do nothing in terms of changing the story progression or offering interesting re-playability.
Alex Hunter The Journey isn’t a cornerstone of the series or something that will get fans excited. It’s merely an afterthought and one that won’t go away.
The Good with FIFA 19
I don’t want to end this post without first touching on a few things I did like about FIFA 19. First off, despite my disdained for how they handled the Champions League, I will give them credit for doing an excellent job with it. They really went out of their way to make Champions League matches feel and look different than normal league matches. They also recorded special announcers and added new stadiums for UCL. The sights, sounds, and atmosphere for Champions League matches are spot on.
I also really like the on-pitch gameplay of FIFA 19 better than last year’s release. They once again slowed the game speed down a bit, passing seems more realistic, and they have done a good job with adding weight to the ball. Previous players of both FIFA and PES know that PES does a lot better job of simulating the actual ball, and I think FIFA has done a good job this year with fixing this.
In the end, the game feels half finished. The features that EA did touch (Champions League, Gameplay) are excellent. The problem is that was all they did, and for me, that’s not worth $70.00.
Red Dead Redemption
And one final reason I will be skipping FIFA this year: Red Dead Redemption 2. Any gamer knows how excited the industry is with the upcoming release of RD2. With FIFA released on September 28th and Red Dead releasing October 26th, I decided to save my money with FIFA and buy RD2 instead. I don’t think I’ll have much time to play FIFA when I’m horseback riding across the Great Plains. Sorry EA, I’m keeping my old copy of FIFA 18 this year and instead I’m playing cowboys.
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