Game developer and publisher Electronic Arts (EA) is reportedly launching the latest iteration to its football simulation video game FIFA 16 in the upcoming Electronic Entertainment Expo (E3) 2015 to be held on June 16 to 18 at the Los Angeles Convention Center. Subsequently, EA expects to roll out the game to the retail markets towards the end of September. We recently spoke exclusively Nick Channon, the series producer of FIFA 16, when it was announced that women would be in the game for the very first time. Whilst chatting to Nick we asked him about the possibility of indoor football returning but his response didn’t exactly fill us with hope. “We’ll see, I think primarily FIFA has always been an 11 vs 11 game and I think that’s core to what we do. Obviously in the past we’ve developed games like FIFA Street which had five a side football and futsal. I think that type of football is more suited to that game whereas FIFA is more about the authentic XI vs XI experience and that will be our focus going forward.”

Of course Barcelona star and next year’s Ballon d’Or favourite Lionel Messi will be on there - that is pretty much set in stone, but fans can now vote for someone they want to join him, and while you might be imagining the likes of Eden Hazard and David De Gea, the four players chosen are an odd mixture to say the least. Most recently, Full FIFA learned EA Sports is vying for the licenses that Konami’s Pro Evolution Soccer (PES) once held for the upcoming FIFA 16. EA Sports intend on wrestling the UEFA license from Konami to add Champions League to upcoming installments of FIFA. According to rumors, EA are currently contemplating making a standalone UEFA Euro 2016. This contributed to FIFA 16’s focus on gameplay. EA did not want bugs and errors that spoiled gameplay in this way, and it hopes that FIFA 16 will not generate any more conspiracies. Then you have my favourite new thing outside of the proper gameplay stuff, no touch dribbling. Sounds weird. How can you dribble without touching the ball, right? Well, you can.

 

It’s something that’s really hard to explain in written form, but I’ll try. I guess you could kind of call it an evolution of feints or shimmying, but it’s essentially when the ball is still moving when you’re dribbling but you’re not touching it. The best way I can describe it by showing you Messi’s amazing goal against Bilbao recently (see video below). If you watch carefully, he dribbles, but there are times where he barely touches the ball or doesn’t touch it at all as it moves forward. That or… Do you remember Berbatov’s amazing skill on the touchline at Old Trafford to set up Ronaldo? Yeah. That is no touch dribbling, done by holding one of the triggers.

I actually liked EA’s explanation of it on the day, imagine the clutch in car and you’ll have some idea as to how it works. I used it to good effect against a certain member of FUT head news quite a few times! There's also something called "no touch dribbling", which lets you separate the player from the ball, allowing for Messi-style dribbling. And finally, FIFA Trainer pops button prompts on top of the controlled players, suggestions actions you should take. This is designed for newcomers and those hoping to learn new things. Don't worry - you can turn it off. Unfortunately, there are a few important ones missing, such as the World Cup, Copa America and the European Championship, but these are removed due to some licensing restrictions. You will need to wait until 2018 for the next Official FIFA World Cup game. You can still play FIFA World Cup 2014.

 

The controls remain as tight and responsive as ever, so much so that one can't help but feel like a bad ass after pulling off a sweet move or two. The control response feels more intuitive than in previous versions and I had no problem juking past defenders with agile players just as they do in real life. The issue of balls bouncing to opposing players 100% of the time after a standing tackle has been fixed. More importantly, the referee is no longer an immovable tree trunk who blocks your path if you happen to run into him. The added processing power of the FIFA PS4 has resulted in several tweaks to the game. Shots on goal are now more realistic. In the past the soccer ball would either get past the goalkeeper or not, but now the position and movement can influence if the ball gets past or not. Seeing the ball bounce off the goalkeeper’s limbs or slip underneath him adds another layer of realism to the game.