FUT In added time: EA FC 24's Playbook for Winning On and Off the Field

Welcome to the first blog of EA FC 24, the future is triangles EA would have you believe. As we know EA FC will be Electronic Arts (EA) first football game outside of the Fifa franchise. A well documented price hike from Fifa saw EA move away from using the brand Fifa on their games. This brings the end of a relationship spanning all the way from 1994 - 2023, a whopping 29 year stint!

So are you ready to step onto the pitch?

EA FC brings a host of new features that promise to reshape the way we experience the beautiful game. We delve into the exciting new features that EA FC has introduced, giving fans and players a reason to get excited. In this issue, I analyse all the features from the FC 24 Ultimate Team | Official Deep Dive Trailer - FC 24 Ultimate Team | Official Deep Dive Trailer 

Ultimate Team Evolutions

“In ultimate team evolutions, you’re going to pick your favourite players and upgrade them throughout the year.

This is tremendously exciting. The opportunity this now gives players could be huge. Have you ever wanted that one special player to stay in your club throughout the entire cycle? 

I know I have. This feature is giving us the fans an option to do just that any player can be selected to become upgrades and all you have to do is complete objectives. Sounds a good objective grind to me, right? 

I’m holding my breath into how quickly you can level these players up and whether they stay in-line with the powercurve. History tells us that EA tends not to boost objective cards all that much, so let’s wait and see. 

Women’s football comes to Ultimate Team

I’m excited for this one and comes after such a thrilling Women’s World Cup where Spain ran out 1-0 winners over England in the final. This brings a bunch of new players into Ultimate Team and where they’ll integrate within the existing chemistry system through nation and club links. It means there’s going to be an insane amount of new players to try and systems to play them in. 

The example EA show is Sam Kerr (91) can link to Lauren James (82) and Reece James (84) through club links between the Women's Super League (WSL) and club links to Chelsea. 

On a personal level, I’m here for women in Ultimate Team. For me there’s going to be nothing better than blasting past a huge tall Centre Back who’s 6ft+ with a Striker who’s 5”4. It’s going to give players lots of squad building options and lots of new promo cards to get excited about. 

The only caveat that I see with EA adding all of these cards, is that upgrade packs which include gold rare cards are going to have so many more options and the likelihood of packing promo cards will likely become more difficult. Especially around big promos such as Team of the Year and Team of the Season.   

Heroes and Icons

“Expect new heroes and Icons”. 

EA don’t spend too much time on this section, but do show us a glimpse of three new hero cards for Wesley Sneijder (91), Alex Scott (88) and Carlos Tevez (90) in the trailer. 

Icon chemistry is also getting a buff, with a new +1 chemistry point towards every league in your starting 11. That’s a huge buff to icons and makes them much more viable than what they have been for the majority of Fifa 23. 

Playstyles

A completely new feature from EA and one that resembles Pro Clubs progression in years gone by. The concept is great for clubs, as you can fine tune your pro into whatever style or mould you like. For Ultimate Team, this might become more difficult, but a way for EA to really make those top-tier cards pop even more and become very desirable. 

Personally, this feels like a minor detial from EA and adds more gimmick to the game rather than any meaningful details as we know by the end game, all cards are maxed out anyway.

And finally, something that I’ve wanted for a long time and it’s…. Claim all!

So when you’ve got 10+ objectives complete at the same time, usually through swaps or token objectives. You can now just claim all in one swoop, which is a massive quality-of-life improvement is a huge addition to the game. 

That’s me signing off for another blog, I’ll be back in a couple of weeks to cover my first impressions of the game and provide some transfer market activities. See you soon 👋.

Kyle