Look around any number of FIFA 21-related community forums and the FIFA subreddit, and among all of the discussion about FIFA Ultimate Team (or FUT – the mega-popular card collecting goliath that has spread into nearly every EA Sports title since it started back in FIFA 12), you will find several posts about Career Mode. Fans (and I arguably fall into this section) who don’t care about FUT, and prefer the experience of managing a club in the traditional sense have long blasted EA for not innovating the Career Mode experience enough compared to the efforts that the studio put in to cater to the massive FUT crowd. (To be honest, you can’t blame them when the mode regularly brings in over $1 billion in revenue.)
Now though, it seems EA has listened to the Career Mode faithful and brought about some interesting changes that look to give the veteran mode a much-needed refresh.
The first thing people might notice is the new match screen in FIFA 21. The classic options of play or sim are still there, but now there’s a new hybrid mode which feels very Football Manager and less like traditional FIFA. The twist is that at any point you can jump straight into the game and take control as if you were there from the start. A crucial last-minute penalty? Now you can be the hero, rather than hoping, praying, or making a sacrifice to the gods of RNG with goat’s blood and the soul of your newborn child.
Another page from the Football Manager playbook is player development. In FIFA 21, You’ll be able to choose what sort of role you want your players to fulfill in your squad by deciding what attributes you train. Finally, after all this time, you can train your players in new positions, so for all the people that say Trent Alexander-Arnold would be better as a winger than a defender – go ahead, find out.
Players will now be affected by match sharpness, a new attribute in FIFA 21 that can be improved in the new scheduled training feature. You’ll be able to choose what days they rest, and set up special group training sessions that can improve a lot more players at once (up to 15) than previously possible in FIFAs gone by. Finally, you can pretend to be your favorite Italian club with loans with options-to-buy, as well as engage in swap deals that’ll likely be heavily balanced towards the opposition team. “No, I don’t want to give you Kevin De Bruyne for one of your youngsters, go away.”
FIFA 21 launches on PC, PlayStation 4, Xbox One, and Nintendo Switch on October 9, but EA and Origin Access members can start playing on October 1. EA is offering a free upgrade for all their sports titles (including FIFA and Madden NFL) for next-generation consoles, provided you stay within the same console family, and up until the release of the next iterations of games.
We asked ourselves at the Nerd Stash – what do we want to see with EA’s latest offering? Judging by this news, we have at least Career Mode ticked off the list. We also know we love our sports games – ever wondered why that is, exactly?
