More than ever, it’s a game of inches and interceptions, with defenders urging themselves towards the ball wherever possible, pressing and lunging and reaching out feet.
Working the ball through the middle of the park feels attritional and muddy, full of physicality and friction. These last points are the ones that really contribute to FIFA 16’s most obvious shift the fact that the midfield is now a battlefield. Perhaps most significantly of all, defender AI has been fine-tuned to make more interceptions and to track runners with more doggedness. No longer does the protect-the-ball crab pose offer an impenetrable defence it’s easier to slip around players in possession of the ball and then get a foot to it. Other noticeable additions to defending include a tackle feint, for counter-baiting tricksy opponents during one-on-one battles. This new, stronger, more flexible slide tackling is a success. I’ve been caught by defenders when I thought I was out of range, I’ve won the ball with crunching block-tackles at fullback, and I’ve used the slide to channel runners by blocking off their path. Well-timed toe-pokes, meanwhile, can satisfyingly break up play, while desperate moments give players more options to deliberately foul players just before they break into space (this is usually harshly punished, but so much fun). Slide tackles have regained some of the old potency players really do slide again, meaning it’s possible to win the ball from unexpected distance. Or at least, defenders are now better equipped to win the ball and compete against attacking players. FIFA 16's Ultimate Team now also comes with a compelling new Draft Modeĭefending is easier.
And while, realistically, we’ll have to wait until the online population has stress-tested the new system for millions of hours and reported back before we’ll really know, this is how the changes currently feel. EA Sports' latest soccer sim wants players to compete on a level footing. The stated objective was to remove player speed as the pivotal factor in deciding games, to make the midfield meaningful, and to enable different styles of play, rather than FIFA 15’s dominating tactic of high balls out to the wing where fast man will get behind the defence. It’s hard, and the first few games are a mixture of frustration and promise. Last year’s slants and foibles-pace, over-the-top through-balls, maddening defender behaviour-have been taken sternly in hand, to the extent that playing FIFA 16 feels like learning a new game. What I mean by ‘everything’ is that the heart of the game, the way in which FIFA plays football, has for the first time in a few years made a jump big enough to feel like a distinct break rather than an iterative polish. We should probably start with ‘everything’, as there’s a lot to get through.
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