Roy Luepnitz

This game is a complete and utter embarrassment to the EA franchise. I have been playing FIFA since 05 on a GameCube console (since 2013 online) and have admired how greatly the game has developed over the years. Out of all sports games such as Madden, NBA2K, NHL, PES, and others, FIFA’s game mechanics have always been the most precise and better developed in my opinion. However, during the last 2 releases the game has taken a terrible dip. This game genuinely feels uncontrollable. -Player movement: Who cares if you’re running with Mbappe or Haaland on an offensive breakthrough; what would’ve been an almost certain goal on previous games now feels like an opportunity for the game to screw you over by having a no name defender catching up and tugging on your forward or blocking your shot. Players feel stiff, uncontrollable, and slow. The skill movements we once got to enjoy now are incredibly slow and useless. - Passing: The passing has been incredibly inconsistent. Wether it is the direction or power behind the pass, you do not get the results of the pass you’re intending to make often turning the ball over to the other team or passing it to the wrong teamate. The through passes are very inconsistent as well, often going straight to the defender as opposed to ahead of a running forward. Crosses to the box are also very inconsistent, I’ll just leave that one at that. - AI off-ball movement: I don’t even know where to begin with this, it seems like EA relied on a diversity hire to program this. Defensively, the game will pack the box whenever you reach the other team’s defensive third making it nearly impossible to make a pass or to take a shot regardless of how much you pass the ball to open up a space. You seriously have to rely on running in short circles with one player to get any chance of shooting. However, on a counter attack, who knows what is going on because you can literally just kick the ball from your defensive end and somehow get a 3v1 against the other team because their defenders are nowhere to be found. Offensively, AI players will stop running to the box to receive a cross or a through pass often sticking to the defender or just slowing down entirely instead of getting open for a header or shot. I won’t even talk about the goalkeepers, I’ve seen e ouch people write about them. - Shooting: Forget about curved shots from outside the box, it is incredible how high ranked forwards and midfielders will just completely shank these type of shots or shoot them at such a slow speed that it almost looks like a lob. Only a handful of players can take descent shots from outside the box. The direction and power behind shots are also inconsistent. Once again, inconsistency. - Defense: This probably stresses me out the most. Just because you stab the ball of the other player does not even come close to a guarantee that you will gain possession. The worst is when you find yourself in a 1 on 1 situation against a forward and you stab the ball and bounces off the forward towards your goal giving him an open shot. In the midfield, when this happens, it just turns into utter chaos and no one can keep control of the ball to save their lives. The defensive players also are hard to control and move accurately so unfortunately it is better a lot of time to just rely on the AI to do the work making the game less enjoyable.