EA Sports FC 24 (or FC24, for short) is the latest addition to EA Sports’ yearly cycle of soccer gaming and is the first successor of the retired FIFA soccer franchise. Although FIFA doesn’t license their name for use anymore, it hasn’t stopped the Vancouver-based team from starting a re-branded franchise and releasing its first title for competitive Ultimate Team enjoyers to build a new team and rise up the ranks to be the best in the world.
Along with a new name, FC24 also introduces HyperMotionV technology, PlayStyles with Opta optimization, and AcceleRATE 2.0.
… Whatever those big words are. Don’t worry – We’ll dive into what those are.
The main focus of this write-up article is FC24’s Career Mode and the general gameplay. I’m not going to dive into the game’s main mode and EA Sports’ cash cow, Ultimate Team (formerly FIFA Ultimate Team, or FUT, now abbreviated UT) because I already know what it’s like: Competitive and highly addictive.
I don’t need another multiplayer game mode to have to commit to playing everyday, thank you very much.
It’s That Bi-Yearly Time Again
My first FIFA game I ever owned was FIFA 12, not counting the FIFA 10 demo that was included with the Xbox 360 and some older FIFA title I played on a Nintendo 64 emulator.
Apparently, FIFA 12 was a revolutionary title, especially for the gameplay. Nevertheless, I wanted a soccer game after being inspired by Euro Cup 2012 that summer, and I was a huge EA Sports NHL enjoyer, so I got FIFA 12 for the Xbox 360 without waiting for FIFA 13, which – at the time – was going to be released in a month.
I didn’t regret waiting for the newer title, though. I was instantly hooked with FIFA 12. Career mode was fun and the gameplay felt satisfying.
I continued to enjoy FIFA 12 for a full year before hopping onto FIFA 14, which I played on the day it was released. To this day, it remains to be the best FIFA game I’ve ever played.
I usually get a new FIFA game every couple of years. I’ve played FIFA 12 and 14 on the Xbox 360; 16 and 18 on the PS4; and 20 and 22 on the PC.
This means it’s time to get FC24, right? Not really – This time around, I decided to take advantage of EA Play – which is included with Game Pass – to play the game on a 10 hour trial, to see if this game is any different from FIFA 22.
Still Enjoying (Modded) FIFA 20
Four years after its release, I’m still enjoying (a modded) FIFA 20. Thanks to the wonderful FIFA 20 modding community, I was able to improve the gameplay: It’s harder to complete passes and shots, there’s bigger differences between players with big rating discrepancies (for example, a player with high sprint speed and acceleration will always outrun a player with lower attributes), and there’s more variance with the way the CPU AI attacks. The CPU also fouls often, and I have a lot of direct free kick opportunities, something I barely got to experience in FIFA 18.
I also improved the Career Mode logic, which included changing the available transfer funds at the start of every season, increasing amount of points needed to win the league title (so you actually need to get 80+ points for a good chance to be at the top of the league, which wasn’t the case with vanilla Career Mode in FIFA 20 and previous editions), improving the number of goals top scorers will score by the end of the season (which is around 30 goals), and improving the transfers and loans made by CPU teams, to name a few.
Meanwhile, some clubs were replaced by fictional clubs due to lack of licensing (but retained their real-life players). To fix this, I installed a mod that replaced those clubs back with their real-life counterparts. For example, the mod brought back Juventus, Boca Juniors, and River Plate, which replaced Piemonte Calcio, Buenos Aires, and Nuñez, respectively.
Since it’s a four year old game now, rosters are quite outdated, which means Haaland is still with RB Leipzig, Phonzie is still a low-70 overall (but still has a potential in the high 80’s), and Chelsea doesn’t have any players signed to 7-year deals. Although there are plenty of squad files out there that updates the rosters, I still like to keep the rosters as close to where they were at the start of the 2019 soccer calendar.
I’ve played 662 hours of FIFA 20, so the game will be my main point of comparison with FC24, and I’ll also mention a bit of FIFA 22 as well, which I’ve played for 443 hours, also with mods.
However, I haven’t played FIFA 23, so I’m unfamiliar with the features for that edition, and any “new” features I talk about in FC24 may have already existed for FIFA 23. Apologies in advance!
Onto FC24: Setting the Settings
FC24 gave me the chance to set my Favourite Club, Difficulty, and Controller Preset when I booted the game up for the first time. The EA servers remembered my favourite club was Toronto FC, but left the Difficulty selection on Amateur, and in past games, it would either choose World Class or Legendary for me.
It’s not a big deal, though; I set my Difficulty to Legendary and the Controller Preset to Alternate, which means shoot with X and cross with B.
I changed more settings after selecting the Change Settings button at the bottom, including using Semi-assists for Ground Passes and Goalkeeper Saves, and Manual/no assists for most other settings, including Shots, Crosses, Through Balls, and Auto Clearances.
There also seems to be a new Defending style called Advanced Defending; I’m not sure what this is, so I switched it to Tactical Defending.
Meanwhile, there were some settings like Auto Switch on Air Balls and Loose Balls, which I left alone.
From the Audio section, I like to play with muted commentary, because I like the feeling of being at the venue. I wonder if the EA servers remembered this too, because the Commentary volume was already set to 0.
Finally, it’s nice to see that the graphics and display settings can be changed in the menus instead of having them changed at a windowed launcher, which doesn’t exist for this year’s FC24. I switched my Monitor’s Refresh Rate to 144 Hz and uncapped the frames. Although the frames can only be capped at 30, 60, or 120 FPS, any value can easily be set by choosing Uncapped Frames and then using Nvidia Control Panel or RivaTuner to set a custom max frame rate.
As for the Graphics Quality settings, like Rendering, Grass, and Crowd qualities, I thought it was a great idea to try them all on Ultra. I was feeling great about having the highest settings on Lies of P that I forgot that Ultra is poorly optimized for EA Sports FC and FIFA games. I switched them back to Medium and the game ran much better.
Unfortunately, either there’s a bug with saving the settings, or I’m not saving them properly, because I had to set my Controller Preset and Gameplay Settings three times. I also turned off PlayStyles+ Overhead Indicators under the Visual Settings in the middle of a Kick-Off game, and it turned back on when I started a new Career Mode save.
Before I head into the gameplay features, there is one major complaint that I have with the main menu layout that I want to address. EA Sports went away with the tiles layout, which honestly isn’t a big deal, but why are the Settings and Accessibility buttons very small and on the left side?! I was scrolling through the big worded menu buttons looking for SETTINGS, and was confused on why I couldn’t find it.
I realize that the hint at the bottom shows how to access the Settings and Accessibility Settings, but if I didn’t accidentally knock the analogue stick to the left I don’t think I would’ve ever found it. Settings and Accessibility should be clearly obvious to see and be with the rest of the menu buttons.
New Gameplay Features
There’s quite a bit of gameplay features that are new to FC24. I usually play some Kick-Off games just to get a feel for how the game runs, so let’s start off with that.
HyperMotionV, PlayStyles, & AcceleRATE 2.0
This year’s edition of EA Sports FC includes HyperMotionV, PlayStyles optimized by Opta, and AcceleRATE 2.0. That’s a lot of big words to describe the new features added to FC24, but it’s not a problem. Let’s take a moment to read what these features are.
All of the Pitch Notes for the FC24 gameplay can be read here, and I’ll try to summarize each of the new features (which are available for PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X|S, and PC only).
HyperMotionV
My understanding with this feature is that they used a lot (and I mean a lot!) of real world data captured by stadium cameras from the top leagues around the world, including stadiums from the Premier League, La Liga, Champions League, you name it. The data itself includes the way each and every player on the pitch moves from the first minute of a match to the last, and is fed into a machine learning algorithm so the game can recreate all of these player motions and generate the appropriate player animations.
Basically, FC24 aims to make all players on the pitch look as human-like and less robotic as possible based on the data they acquired, have players move exactly as they would in real-life depending on the situation in the game, and even mimic the movement of iconic players such as Erling Haaland.
AcceleRATE 2.0
The second iteration of AcceleRATE adds more uniqueness to a player’s sprint and how fast they can run compared to their peers. FC24 expanded on three base Acceleration Types, which were Explosive, Controlled, and Lengthy, and the game now adds a few more archetypes in-between those types to accurately represent different players better.
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PlayStyles
PlayStyles are basically ability power-ups for players to uniquely stand out even more than their peers. For example, a player with the Incisive PlayStyle will be able to deliver through balls more accurately than a player without it.
Furthermore, to make elite players stand out among good players, they’ll be able to also have PlayStyles+, which are superior to their PlayStyles counterpart. So a player with Incisive PlayStyle+ has a chance for their through balls to completely avoid defenders.
These features are EA Sports’ attempt to make the gameplay have even more variables to make each and every game feel as unique as possible, whether it’s through the use of artificial intelligence and machine learning, or a variety of power-ups only specific players can have.
With past FIFA games, players would have traits specifically for the CPU AI, like Playmaker, Long Shot Taker, or Technical Dribbler, to ensure CPU-controlled players played that way often. Obviously, FIFA players can use any player as a deep-lying playmaker or take crazy long shots outside of the box, as long as they have the attributes for it.
In theory, PlayStyles and AcceleRATE 2.0 should make skilled players stand out even more compared to their peers regardless of who has better attributes, so if a player has a the Tiki Taka PlayStyle, they should be able to complete ground passes more accurately even if they have a lower Short Pass attribute than a player with a higher Short Pass attribute but no Tiki Taka PlayStyle.
Also, I can’t help but wonder if PlayStyles might not matter much if a player uses Assisted controls; If a player has assisted passing on, they’ll be able to play Tiki Taka football even with a team full of players with sub-70 passing attributes. So player attributes and PlayStyles likely have a bigger impact when played with Semi or Manual controls.
Now the question is, do I notice and feel the impact of these features within the actual gameplay? Time to try them out.
Experiencing the Gameplay with Kick-Off Mode
For my first play-through of a new soccer game, I always play Kick-Off Mode before diving into any other game mode (well, career mode is the only mode I play) so it’s time to head in there and try out all the new gameplay features discussed above.
I usually play Toronto FC at home and play against Montréal Impac-… I mean, CF Montréal, but Toronto FC is in such a sad, sorry state. So I decided to do the El Clásico and play Barcelona against Real Madrid.
After I was done setting my lineups, tactics, stadium, and stuff, I was ready to jump into the gameplay. First up was the match intro.
I was expecting to see the usual player walk-outs, see the lineup graphics, and hear the league anthem. Instead, the game shows the players interact with each other in the tunnels, players walking out of the tunnel with children, and the referees doing the coin toss with the captains, all in quick succession. After a momentary fade-to-black, the game fades right back in and I’m right at kick-off.
What?!
At this point, I’m thinking maybe it’s just for Kickoff. If I play career mode, they’ll show the full introductions, because they have the Premier League anthem and teams have their own walk-out songs they play, right? … Right?
Guess I’ll find out in a moment. But back to the El Clásico gameplay.
The first thing I noticed right away is the PlayStyles. Frenkie de Jong has the Tiki Taka PlayStyle, so an icon will appear above his head to let me know that he has an elite buff, and I should feel confident with his ground passes. It’s nice to know, but it also just adds extra screen clutter for me. Although it’s helpful for some players, I already know how good my players are, especially if I put my team together in Career Mode. Good thing I can turn off the icon display in the settings, which I did.
I also noticed the movement feels different. With the new AcceleRATE, my wingers were able to outrun the opposing fullbacks and create space up the pitch, as well as track back and cover for my fullbacks if needed.
To bring players even closer to the action, they introduced a referee first-person cam, so they can see players on the pitch be all up in their face when the referee pulls out a yellow card. That’s cool, I guess.
FC24 also adds more visuals during half-time, so in the pause menu, bench players can be seen warming up on the pitch, fans chilling out in the stands, and the coach/manager going over tactics in the dressing room with their team. Additionally, when the game is finished, players are seen walking back through the tunnels, fans checking out scores on their phones, and the press getting ready to do post-match coverage.
I still wish there was a cinematic of players walking back out to the pitch for the second half and hear the crowd roar, but these little extra scenes are still nice to have.
Meanwhile, I dislike the quality of life in the pause menu. Firstly, I don’t like how the game uses one of the soundtracks on a loop. It’s bad enough that they’re heard at half-time and full-time in past FIFA games – regardless of whether I have the main menu music volume at 0 or not – but now in FC24 I hear it when I go to the pause menu to make substitutions or tactical changes, as well. The worst part about this is that, even though I have the main menu music volume at 0, it’s still heard, even for a few seconds, before it fades out.
Secondly, I noticed that my controller vibrates when I scroll through the items in the pause menu. This leads to nothing but useless battery drain, and I have no way to adjust the vibration intensity or even turn it off.
Thoughts So Far After A Few Kick-Off Games
I’ve gathered some of my thoughts and impressions after playing a few kick-off games.
If I’m impressed with one thing, it’s definitely the player animations. It feels nicer to move the players around. They’re realistic too, as they can’t zoom around the pitch with perfect agility to cover spaces or go into spaces. Just like in FIFA 22, I took enough care to make sure I wasn’t too aggressive with my CB’s, so they can stay in place and hold the line.
Other than that, I’m not really excited for the game, so far. For one, the HyperMotionV overlays doesn’t add much for me, even the expected goals advanced stat they also sometimes show. I also noticed that the HyperMotionV tech was used exclusively for CPU replays, while my goals had the generic replays. Why? Are my plays not special enough? 😢
I’m playing FC24 with a 10-hour trial that EA Play grants for me through Game Pass, so if I’m sitting here right now and making a decision on whether I want to splash the cash and own the game after a few kick-off games with 6-8 minute halves, I’m thinking it’s not worth it, so far.
Time to move forward, though. It’s time to visit the one mode that I’ve been waiting to play for FC24, and that’s the good ol’ Career Mode.
FC24’s Career Mode: Is It Finally Good Again? The Moment of Truth
Starting a new career mode follows the same process as the previous FIFA games: Decide whether you want to be a manager or a player, then pick and customize your avatar, choose your club, and customize your career mode experience.
For this article, I’ll focus on the club manager side. I’m not sure on how player career feels on FC24, but I’ve learned to avoid it, as it was broken and unplayable in past FIFA games.
For career mode, I usually like to manage Cardiff City, Blackburn Rovers, Middlesbrough, or Birmingham City. In FIFA 12 and 14 I also liked to managed Toronto FC, but I liked the feel of playing games in England and Wales better, as well as the possibility of playing in Europa League and Champions League. Since I don’t mind Tottenham Hotspur and I like Son, I chose the Spurs as my club to manage for my FC24 test run.
While choosing my difficulty, I chose to scale back to World Class. I eventually found out that playing on Legendary wasn’t a good idea; There’s a post on a Reddit community dedicated to FC24’s Career Mode which explains that it’s better to play on World Class and adjust the sliders to make the gameplay more difficult, such as the Operation Sports Community Sliders, which is a fantastic forum and my go-to for FIFA sliders.
After a short cinematic of watching myself introduced as the new Spurs manager (which I thought was a really nice touch added since the past couple of FIFA games) I was expecting a prompt for the pre-season tournament invites, but it turns out there’s a designated date for it, which is July 15th at least for the first season.
This seems like a neat idea at first, and I wonder how it works in future seasons. In past FIFA games, the pre-season tournament invites should appear the moment a new season starts, but sometimes, if you’re participating in the Euro Cup or the FIFA World Cup, there would be no invite. It sucks because pre-season tournaments are a great way to tinker with lineups and earn some extra cash for the transfer window.
Speaking of transfers, I got to see how transfers were handled for FC24, and my reaction’s mostly a mixed bag. Some of the new additions they added to transfer negotiations include cinematics for when a player leaves or joins the club, which gets stale very quickly after watching it once.
I also noticed a new Tension meter at the top right of the screen that can increase as both parties go back and forth with negotiations. I didn’t get a chance to see what happens when the meter becomes full, but I assume negotiations break off when the other party still doesn’t agree to your money or terms.
EA Sports also stuck with the same background music they used for transfer negotiations in FIFA 22 and it still doesn’t add much for me. I preferred the presentation of the transfer negotiations in FIFA 20 where there was no artificial background music; If they took place in my club office, noises from inside the building such as telephone rings and other people walking by, as well as noises from the training pitch outside such as player yells and soccer balls being kicked around, were heard.
In other settings that had background music were actually a part of the ambience – In a posh café, there would be relaxing music likely being played by an unseen pianist, and in a high-rise hotel/restaurant, there would be (Trip-Hop? Lo-Fi?) music being played in the background, likely through stereo speakers. In both places, the typical restaurant noises such as chatter and utensils touching porcelain are heard, as well. The bottom line is transfer negotiations in FIFA 20 were immersive, and it felt like I was actually there.
FC24 also grades you after every transfer, which was a puzzling feature to see, as it felt like I was playing a mini arcade game or Ultimate Team now. The game “grades” a transfer based on money spent and how well they fit into the team based on the coaches you have hired for the team. Obviously, a transfer where you spend an insane amount of money on a reserve player is an awful transfer, but I still think there are so many other factors that decide how good or bad a transfer is, that it can’t be judged on the spot. A transfer for a young player that’s graded a C can turn into a great transfer if the player grows and exceeds their potential, and player training can be used to boost specific attributes and mould them into the system, as well.
As for coaches, they’re a new feature introduced to FC24’s career mode. Their purpose is to enhance a chosen Tactical Vision for a team, whether the style is playing Long Ball or Tiki Taka. Since I chose the Tiki Taka style, I should hire coaches that favour the Tiki Taka style, who will boost the attributes of players who also fit that style.
While the Tactical Vision can enhance a specific play the players want to play, it can also be limiting. For example, once I chose Tiki Taka, my Tactics and Player Instructions in the team lineups were already changed to match the Tactical Vision. If there’s any changes made to certain instructions, it will change the Tactical Vision to Custom and the right side of the screen will show your hired coaches no longer match the Tactical Vision. It’s a shame – sometimes tactical adjustments need to be made in the middle of a match and there will be attribute debuffs for doing so.
Finally, I noticed a different Training Plan implementation for FC24 compared to what I saw with FIFA 22. Training has been simplified for FC24, and there’s no more having to do weekly training drills to maintain player sharpness. This new implementation even allows for backup goalkeepers to maintain their sharpness, unlike in FIFA 22, in which there were no training drills for goalkeepers, and the only way for them to maintain their sharpness was to play games.
It’s almost time for me to head into the one part of Career Mode I’ve been anxious to play: An actual game! I want to see if they still have any of the usual walk-outs, league anthem, and lineup presentation for the match intros.
There’s three parts to the match preparation routine I have to go through, first. The first part is the Pre-Match Report, which I was really intrigued by. Not only does this section shows me the probable lineup for the opponents, but it also tells me a whole scouting report on their Tactical Vision! I actually thought this was impressive and is something past FIFA games really needed.
The second part is the Training Session, where I can now see where the weekly training drills from past FIFA games went. This time around, there’s only one training drill players can complete, and if they’re able to pass it, participating players can earn a temporary PlayStyle for the match. As exciting as it sounds, I’m also skeptical about how this feature would play out long term.
FC24 retained most of the drills featured in past FIFA games, and the drills still have the Regular and Heavy indicators – These were supposed to reflect how much energy would be drained from participating players in exchange for how much sharpness they’d increase, but since energy and sharpness isn’t a part of the drills anymore, they probably reflect how hard the drills are.
This is where my skepticism with the Training Session feature arises. Some of these drills, like Extreme Hot Potato, are really hard to get an “A” with. But this drill also gives Harry Kane Pinged Pass, James Maddison Tiki Taka, and Pierre-Emile Højbjerg Tika Taka, which are all very useful PlayStyles to have for my Tactical Vision.
The game already shows I have 0 attempts despite only attempting my first try with the drill; This number actually means if I turn the ball over once, it’s game over and I have to retry the drill. The number of attempts I have left to reach the points threshold is shown after the attempt is finished.
Career Mode players can probably make an in-house rule to skip the Training Session and not have any temporary PlayStyles to gain an edge over opponents, but for those players who do want to play the Training Session before each and every game – even if they sim games – can be punished if they don’t run a drill perfectly and pass in that one moment of time, and they run the risk of feeling tilted before the game even starts.
I had three attempts to reach 27,500 points and get the temporary PlayStyles, and the best I could do was 23,147 points. Sigh, oh well. Skill issue, I guess.
The one final part to complete for Match Day preps is the Press Conference; It looks like now players can do a Press Conference before each and every game for a chance to boost their players’ morale, unlike in past FIFA games where some – but not all – games offered to attend a Press Conference.
Unfortunately, the Press Conferences are mostly unchanged. The process is the same: Be asked three questions, respond accordingly, and depending on the type of response chosen, watch a team or player’s morale rise or drop. It’s the same old stuff that probably gets stale for some players after quite some time.
Now that I completed all of the Pre-Match preparations, I have the option of either playing the match with Play Match, or simming through the game with either Tactical View or Play Highlights. It was finally time to see how the match intros were handled in Career Mode, so I select Play Match, load into the game, and…
It was all the same. The game shows what’s happening with my manager and the players inside the tunnels, which shifts over to the players walking onto the pitch with a child in hand. The Premier League anthem is blaring in the background, and the PA announcer can be heard announcing my opponent’s starting lineup, all in a very compressed fashion. After a momentary fade-to-black, the screen fades back in with the game ready at kick-off.
As disheartened as I was to see this, I’m guessing the thinking behind this is that players already saw the probable lineups before the game, so there’s no need to show them again when the match starts. Still, it’s disappointing, as I actually really liked the match intro presentation. If I was managing an EFL Championship club to start my Career Mode, it was always exhilarating to get promoted to the Premier League, play my first Premier League match with my club, hear the league anthem, and see my team’s lineup presented with the always pretty Premier League graphics. I’d also get goosebumps when a team like Liverpool has their home anthem played, and I’d often sing along with it! Now for FC24, all I get is this compressed rush job.
FC24’s Always Deep Soundtrack
Before I wrap up with my closing thoughts, I do want to take a moment and talk about the FC24’s soundtrack as it’s always been a huge part of the franchise’s identity. As expected, the game has nailed it once again, this year.
There’s a healthy mix of different genres, and it’s nice that the soundtrack has some songs I already know and like such as “Wait for It” by Salute and “Mercy” by The Blessed Madonna & Jakob Lusk. The soundtrack even has some legendary bands such as The Rolling Stones, which features their newest single, “Angry”.
There’s over 100 artists for both the main FC24 soundtrack and the FC24 Volta mode, so there’s a little something for everyone, which is what FIFA has always done a splendid job of.
Closing Thoughts
Now that I’ve sunk in about 7 out of my 10 total hours I have for the trial version of FC24 playing through Kick-Off and Career modes, it’s time to take a moment and decide whether I think it’s worth investing more time in playing through Career Mode and improve in the game, or whether I should I just uninstall FC24 and go back to a modded FIFA 20.
Honestly, I wasn’t impressed and engaged with FC24 at all.
First of all, I don’t really understand the presentation. Over the years, the game seems to have focused on delivering a TV broadcast-like experience, and even when I turn off the commentary, I can feel like I’m actually there at the stadium watching a game. Now with FC24, it feels like they’re going for a documentary-like experience, with the movie-like compressed match intro, as well as the little behind-the-scenes they show during half-time and full-time.
On top of all of that, the game likes to show the HyperMotionV transition screen – mostly for plays by the CPU – which sometimes doesn’t even play smoothly.
In short, FC24 adds a lot of these visual gimmicks while taking away parts of the presentation I actually enjoyed watching through.
I also don’t enjoy navigating through the menus. The music fading out is awkward, there’s unnecessary controller vibration, and the main menu of the game does well enough to hide the Accessibility and Settings, or at least make them not obvious enough to find.
If there’s one thing I liked about FC24, it’s that the player animations and the AcceleRATE 2.0 technology makes the gameplay feel nice and satisfying. Although I like the purpose of PlayStyles, I personally didn’t notice much difference in gameplay compared to past FIFA games, but I think this is a feature that requires more than 10 hours of gameplay to really notice its impact.
One of my biggest pet peeves with FIFA games is the fouls and the lack of direct free kicks. During all of my time playing the game, I haven’t had a direct free kick once, and I know they added some new mechanics for it because I got to see the new mechanics for corner kicks.
I did, however, get to see lots of handball fouls, especially in instances where I felt like I was properly positioned defensively. Why should I be punished if my player can’t tuck their arms behind their back? I can see why players recommend turning off handball fouls.
Before I discuss the biggest reason why I’m disappointed in FC24, I must acknowledge that licensing issues exist, and sometimes that’s out of the hands of EA Sports. With that said, it’s heartbreaking that the Canadian Men’s National Team is among the national teams excluded this year, along with Australia’s MNT, Austria’s MNT, Brazil’s MNT, and China’s MNT. These are huge exclusions, especially for Career Mode, where your players can still receive International call-ups even if you turn off International Team offers when setting up a new Career Mode save.
It’s a shame too, because Canada MNT is on an upswing in real life with Alphonso Davies, Jonathan David, and Alistair Johnston leading the way. Canada is set to host the next World Cup with the United States and Mexico in 2026, so if you were hoping to play Career Mode, manage Team Canada as a side-gig, call up the best Canadian players, and lead them to their first ever World Cup, that will never happen in FC24.
Those always fun rivalry matches between Argentina and Brazil? Will never happen in FC24.
I think the only reason to be ever invested in FC24 is for Ultimate Team. If I cared enough about that mode and spent all of my 10 trial hours grinding up for FC Coins and bidding on players I want, then I’d have a reason and a purpose to get the full version. The mode is EA Sports’ cash cow after all, so it’s no surprise it’s the one mode that they spend the most time and effort on to make it as competitive and addictive as possible.
However, for any other mode, there’s no reason to get the game, especially if you’re still playing any of the past FIFA games. Even if FC24 ever goes on sale, it’s not worth getting unless Ultimate Team is all you’re ever going to play.
If you’re looking to play Career Mode, just get FIFA 22 or FIFA 23 while they’re still available to purchase on PC and mod it. If there’s still a way to get FIFA 20 on PC, I would’ve recommended that version too, but it’s okay. There’s still plenty of mod options available for FIFA 22 and FIFA 23, and once you learn how to use the editor tools such as the FrostbiteModdingTool or the Frosty Toolsuite, you can make your own mods such as custom kits, as well.
The FIFA player base often described past FIFA games as EA Sports putting lipstick on a pig, and this is exactly what FC24 is. The game has a new name and a bunch of new features and presentation cinematics, but the game also still has bugs and other issues that have plagued the soccer game franchise for years.
If you still want to take FC24 for a spin, and you have Game Pass, you can play a 10-hour trial with EA Play as EA Play is bundled with Game Pass.
With that said, I’ve uninstalled FC24 and I’m going back to FIFA 20. I’m just about to start season two of my Brighton & Hove Albion Career Mode. Coming back to this game is just a nice breath of fresh air, and I know I’m going to enjoy this game for a little while longer.
GLHF and happy gaming!!