EA Sports FC 24 Review - A Series in Need of an Evolution

EA Sports FC 24 was supposed to be an evolution of the series. Electronic Arts finally split from the FIFA license, saying that it would open them up to be more innovative with EA FC 24. The Ultimate Team developers even introduced the concept of Evolutions to the card-collecting mode. Don't be tricked by that shiny new name on the front of the box, though. Unless you're a hardcore player, this is the same game you've been playing for the last several seasons.

That's likely not a surprise for most. After all, players love to call yearly sports games a "roster update." And that's largely true for EA Sports FC 24 unless you're deep into the weeds on how the game functions. For example, Manager Career has added the ability to drill down into your team's tactics, even letting you hire assistant coaches for specific positions to improve your team's training. It's not as robust as Football Manager, but it's a solid addition for players looking to immerse themselves as the manager of their favorite club.

At the end of the day, I would bet the majority of players barely interact with that system. Sure, your team won't be quite as good without proper training, but you don't have to do it. Most players want to build a team through transfers and win titles. They don't really care that Becky Hightower will get their mid-field coaching an extra boost over George Stanfield. Player Career is similar in that you now have an Agent giving you objectives to get your next contract, but they're all things you'd be doing anyway. Sure, for the players that do care, these are neat systems, but they're far from an evolution of the game.

PlayStyles Are The Only Real "Evolution" in EAFC 24

The closest thing to a proper step forward for EA Sports FC 24 is the new PlayStyles system. While the gameplay is mostly similar to the previous year (dribbling and passing do feel a bit better at launch), the PlayStyles let the best players separate themselves from the pack. Think of these as upgraded Traits from FIFA 23. 

There are 34 total PlayStyles available and they all also have an upgraded PlayStyle+. Importantly, when a PlayStyle activates, you'll see a small icon pop up on your screen showing you that it's working. This teaches when and how they work in-game, giving you the information you need to best deploy them. I was quickly able to start noticing the difference in how players performed when they had different traits. For example, Chelsea's Thiago Silva comes with the Anticipate PlayStyle and after seeing that raccoon icon pop up several times in a match, I learned that I could trust Silva to break up just about anything my opponent could throw at me.

What will be very interesting to pay attention to over the coming weeks and months is how PlayStyles evolve. Especially if you're an Ultimate Team player, you know that EA is also dropping new cards into the game. When we get to Team of the Year time, are we going to see demi-gods that boast several PlayStyles+ traits? Like Thanos, will Team of the Season Kylian Mbappe become an impossible-to-stop titan of the gridiron? We see it happen in other sports games like NBA 2K24 by the end of the year, and we may see it hit EA Sports FC 24.

Ultimate Team's New Flourishes Don't Make Up For Bad Servers

Speaking of Ultimate Team, that's the mode everyone cares about, and it's received some upgrades. Personally, I love the new menu system, but I know many players don't agree with me. Evolutions have the potential to be very cool for anyone playing on a budget, though there's just as much of a chance EA monetizes them in several ridiculous ways. We already have our first paid Evolution at launch, so any worries are certainly warranted. It's also been fun to see so many players embrace EAFC having both men and women on the pitch at the same time. Being able to run an attack that includes Erling Haaland and Trinity Rodman has been a blast. There are plenty of other things to talk about, but they largely don't matter because the glaring problems with the mode remain the same.

EA Sports has long had server issues with its FIFA series, and that's no different this year. Not only have I been knocked out of games even in early access but I've straight-up lost Objective progress at times. There's nothing more annoying than hopping on to play a game or two and complete your dailies only for them not to count. Maybe I wouldn't be that upset about it if this were a smaller game, but EA Sports FC 24 is massive, and EA is making money hand over foot. The fact that we can have $30 untradeable packs in the store during early access, but we still don't have good servers is becoming laughable. 

I suppose that's the crux of my review of EA Sports FC 24. Is it a fine representation of the sport with tons of stuff to do? Sure. Does it feel like EA is investing its money in good gameplay, modes, and servers? Absolutely not. Look, EA has long made it clear that the way it's going to make a soccer game players want to play is by buying licenses. Good gameplay and compelling modes matter to some degree, but EA's tactic is to get all the real-world players you care about and lock them away from competitors as much as it can. Everything else is fighting for scraps financially outside of the Ultimate Team card art department. And it's working. 

That continues to be disappointing as someone who loves soccer and wants a game that's consistently fun to play. EA FC 24 is great in spurts, but everything feels so by the numbers that it's impossible to recommend if you've been sticking with the series through the FIFA years. Like most sports games these days, I'd recommend buying every three or four entries and maybe putting on some parental locks in Ultimate Team so you don't waste your money. Trust me, you can compete with the rest of us weekend warriors without dropping hundreds of dollars. And who knows, maybe next year EAFC will finally go from okay to great again.

Score: 3/5

EA Sports FC 24 was reviewed on a PlayStation 5 console courtesy of a review copy provided by the publisher. The game was released on September 22 across PlayStation, Xbox, and PC platforms.