There are plenty of areas where FIFA can still improve off the pitch however. The most prominent of these has been the burgeoning inclusion of 12 women’s international teams, which ties in nicely with the leap in popularity for the women’s sport after this summer’s World Cup - though the tournament in FIFA 16 isn’t branded as such. Alongside this there’s also the addition of the official Bundesliga broadcast style and stadiums, changes to the career mode which allows you to train players and pre-season tournaments that give purpose to the matches in the off season and can help boost your spending power. While these are all well and good, it’s FIFA Ultimate Team which has become the real lifeblood of the series, allowing people to indulge in creating their own fantasy team and then pit it against the teams of others online. It has been a major success since its introduction in 2009, and to an extent that maybe even surprised EA.

 

EA have utilized their Player Stories engine in various guises over the last few Career Mode iterations,with fairly mixed success. Some of the stories are really interesting and engaging, and others not so. But combined with the some of the new audio technology EA are stepping up their game on that front yet again with their newly dubbed - Story of the Season. Now as well as the general comments about your next opponent, you'll also get deeper routed discussion about big transfers happening in world football (even outside of your league at times), notable player or team performances and should you find yourself in a title or relegation scrap, they'll debate that in some depth too. Things have gone yet another level down in terms of depth essentially. FIFA 16 introduces for the first time a media deck, featuring news from all across the footballing world, adding that extra bit of immersion with the real football world.

 

When you exit to the replay screen during half time or just after the match has been played, you can gaze at the blades of grass that gets ripped off the ground during a hard tackle scenario which may have seemed half decent while you were playing the match from the tele cam view. That brings me to my next favorite feature from this year’s FIFA - the post-match highlights reel. FIFA choreographs every move you make on the pitch and makes notes of them, ultimately displaying them in movie like slow motion after the match has been played. There is so much detail in every moment that you wonder whether you were actually this good in FIFA or not. Prematch is as detailed as it could have been, now with additional commentaries notifying the various team lineups.

 

Sometimes the AI would commit mistakes while announcing the lineup, calling a Defensive Midfielder’s name out loud as my Attacking Midfielder’s replacement, or simply cancel the lineup announcement if a player’s name isn’t registered with FIFA 16’s roster. Live Matchday integration does brilliantly to bring in the magic of every moment, along with daily challenges which ranges from teamplay to Be a Pro challenges. What else is there to mention? Well, sadly there is still no Be a Ref mode despite my constant recommendations to EA for this to happen, though whether I can objectively deduct points for this I am unsure… The commentary is getting ever funnier, with comments about the Force being with the winning team flying out now amongst more inspiring words on the injuries of the game straight from Jeff; “our man on the touch line”.

 

The game looks crisp and fluid, and every bump and jostle for the ball is captured realistically thanks to the Ignite engine. In the default camera setting you won’t get to appreciate it much from far away, but when the game moves in for a corner kick or other set piece you’ll really notice how crisp the players look. The realistic players help draw you in to the celebrations and help the game feel a tad more real. The iconic stadiums are all here and show off their grandeur in the pre-game flyovers. With a new engine come some glitches, but they seem less frequent in FIFA 15 as they were in other EA sports games this year. This is fine with a brand new game, but as players are sold to other teams all over the globe, it becomes potentially impossible to find a player you want. Combined with the changes to the scouting system (first introduced last year), which made scouting far more opaque and scattershot, it makes for an approach that is, at best, annoying and, at worst, actively lessens your enjoyment of the management aspect of the game. Hopefully this gets fixed.