EA FC 24 review: New name, same problems

There are three guarantees in life: death, taxes, and an annual soccer release from EA Sports—though this year’s edition marks the start of a new era with EA FC 24 following the split with the world governing body FIFA.

That divorce made headlines across the world but has not impacted the game significantly as EA FC 24 is exactly what “FIFA 24,” for good or bad, would have been, which will come as a surprise to nobody.

EA Sports has stuck to its tried and tested formula for years, never veering much off the path first set out with the release of Ultimate Team in FIFA 09. In the 15 years since, the franchise may not have stood out as a critical success but has become a commercial behemoth.

Once again, that bottom line can be felt across EA FC 24, where gameplay and new features are second-best to minor adjustments to the money-spinning Ultimate Team mode.

Better fit for casuals

Ultimate Team remains EA FC 24’s bread and butter, with notable changes in this year’s edition making the game more accessible to casual players who don’t have as much time to churn into the game, ensuring they have the meta cards, tactics, and such.

The new Evolutions feature, which allows you to take a player and significantly boost their base card, is a testament to that. Players who would have otherwise been forgotten can be transformed, meaning your favorite player can form the basis of your side regardless of their initial stats.

While there is creativity in the feature, the same cannot be said for the community. As ever, they’re being directed towards the meta, and, as such, online modes are flooded with the same “evolved” cards of Darwin Nunez, Arnaut Danjuma, and the like.

Offline modes in Ultimate Team have also received some welcome attention, with the previously mind-numbing grind of Squad Battles being relieved significantly. The half-length has now been reduced to four minutes and there are now 32 matches to complete. In comparison, FIFA 23 had six-minute halves and 40 matches, double the completion time.

The addition of female players in Ultimate Team has also made Squad Building Challenges easier to complete due to having more options of players to submit, resulting in them being more accessible and not locked behind eye-watering price tags. Other welcome improvements result in alternate positions becoming automatically active and improved menu navigation.

Away from Ultimate Team, a new coaching approach in Career Mode removes the tedious grind of regular training, while the introduction of agents in Player Career allows you to have a more customized career path.

Offline neglection

Unfortunately, while those changes to Career Mode are welcome, offline modes in EA FC 24 have largely been neglected in comparison to Ultimate Team—a criticism that has been directed at EA Sports, and largely ignored, for years.

The result is several bugs that, although not game-breaking, show a lack of attention to detail. In Career Mode, I went into a training session and found my star midfielder playing in goal, while I was praised for “turning things around” with a 2-1 victory, where I actually held a two-goal lead.

In Player Career, during the international break, there were no matches to play, yet my first-team standing with the manager dropped regardless. Another time, I was left confused by an in-game message in the top-right that told me to “look to ET”—which I can only assume was a visual error and was not suggesting I look to a Hollywood alien for guidance.

Ultimate Team, too, has issues, the biggest of which is the flipside of the long-awaited addition of female players. There are now more high-rated players in Ultimate Team but only a few fit EA FC 24’s meta. As such, the chances of opening a pack and getting a player who can genuinely transform your team are extremely minimal.

All of those issues pale in comparison to gameplay, which can be baffling. Games are high-scoring affairs with defenders looking completely and utterly lost. I’ve lost count of the times I’ve seen players skip past opponents with ease while winning the ball when tackling is a rare occurrence. 

Ricochets, bizarre goalkeeping mistakes, and similarly irritating animations are part and parcel of EA FC 24. You just have to accept this will benefit you on some occasions and screw you over others.

The Points problem

These problems all stem back to the biggest issue in EA FC 24 and other EA Sports titles—Points, the game’s premium currency, and the lootbox mechanics, which are controversial at best and deplorable at worst.

While Ultimate Team has many Packs to earn without spending a penny, the vast majority of them are “Untradable,” meaning you can’t sell them on the Transfer Market and, therefore, cannot take advantage of the feature to build a balance of Coins to buy players you need.

Even the early-game Bronze and Silver reward packs cannot be traded, which is bizarre considering the majority of the contents are utter trash, and the untradable issue is even present when you spend real money.

I was stunned to see a pack in the Store costing 3,000 FC Points, which translates to around $30 in the real world, and yet you could not sell the contents. If this is what EA Sports is focusing on just days after releasing in early access, what hope does the community truly have?

The biggest problem, however, is that I, and thousands of players around the world, will still play EA FC 24 regardless of its problems. The lack of competition in the market has made EA Sports a monopoly that cannot be toppled, and if they continue to hold all the licenses for the big leagues and clubs, players will still flock to the game.

All in all, EA FC 24 has simply cemented my long-term belief that Ultimate Team’s introduction all the way back in FIFA 09 was both the best and the worst thing that could have happened to the franchise.