EA Sports FC 24


EA Sports FC 24 is an association football-themed simulation video game developed by EA Vancouver and EA Romania and published by EA Sports. It is the inaugural installment in the EA Sports FC series, succeeding the FIFA video game series after Electronic Arts's partnership with FIFA concluded with FIFA 23. EA Sports FC 24 is the 31st overall installment of EA Sports' football simulation games, and was released on 29 September 2023 for Nintendo Switch, PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Windows, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X/S.

Cover art

The cover for the Standard Edition of the game features Manchester City striker Erling Haaland. The cover for Ultimate Edition of the game features 31 iconic current and former players from around the world in a style akin to the cover of the album Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band. Among the notable figures are Sam Kerr, Virgil van Dijk, Son Heung-min, Zinedine Zidane, Pelé and David Beckham.
When the Ultimate Edition cover was revealed, fans commented on the poor resemblance of many figures to the real life players they represented, bringing into question whether the likenesses in the game would also be bad. Electronic Arts vice president John Shepherd soon after stated that the in-game likenesses would be improved. Shepherd explained that EA had wanted to include a large number of players to reflect the many league and club licenses they had for EA Sports FC 24, and that dealing with the approvals for so many players and kits had made designing the cover art more complex. EA had also received feedback from players after the cover debuted. Besides concern for the game graphics, fans also joked about the figures and how unintentionally funny some of the faces appeared, particularly the figure of Andrea Pirlo looking "lost" or like a Hobbit at the back; possibly a late addition to the cover, Pirlo did not appear in the other promotional material released at the same time.
Fans also noted the absence of Kylian Mbappé, Lionel Messi, and Cristiano Ronaldo from the Ultimate Edition cover.

Features

HyperMotion V

HyperMotion technology was first introduced in FIFA 22, with EA touting the HyperMotion V technology used in EA Sports FC 24 as the "biggest leap forward"; promotion for the game highlighted the feature prominently. Volumetric data from 180matches featuring predominantly English and Spanish professional men's and women's teams was used in developing the technology. It is used only in the regular version of the game, available on Windows for PC, PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X and Series S.
The match data was collected from "cameras around the stadiums", meaning the in-game figures would move more like their real-life counterparts, and was also used to train EA Sports FC proprietary machine learning algorithms. The machine learning used the data to learn what realistic footballing movement is like, and how to recreate it in other figures. The cameras captured all players on the pitch at once, further informing team movement for the game, as well as ball physics. As well as the cameras, EA used data recorded by StretchSense gloves worn by players to record data on how hands moved while playing, training the game's AI on this.
EA also improved their AcceleRATE feature, to AcceleRATE 2.0, with HyperMotion V. Previously, figures were rated with one of three acceleration archetypes that affected their movement when running; AcceleRATE 2.0 uses seven archetypes, though they are still assigned automatically based on physical features rather than on player data.

PlayStyles

Another well-promoted addition to EA Sports FC 24 was PlayStyles, a feature of the in-game footballer figures that better represent the real footballers' unique styles. The data used to create and assign PlayStyles was "optimised by Opta Sports". An extension of this feature, PlayStyles+, are a further enhanced version of PlayStyles attributed to elite players. EA used the Opta Sports data to create 34 PlayStyles in 6 categories, which represent various roles in a squad: scoring, passing, ball control, defending, physical, and goalkeeping.
In previous games, players have been able to use modifiers to allow the footballer figures to play in different positions. With the introduction of PlayStyles, including footballers' alternative realistic positions, and an upgraded chemistry system, the modification option was removed.
It is also possible to switch between automatic precision passing and controlling pass mechanics by gamer input.

Ultimate Team

Having previously been named "FIFA Ultimate Team", the FIFA brand prefix was dropped in line with the games series' rebranding. A new development for Ultimate Team in EA Sports FC 24 was the addition of Evolutions, a mode that allows gamers to improve certain player cards for use in Ultimate Team, giving stats boosts and new PlayStyles. Women's footballers were included in Ultimate Team for the first time, with gamers able to use both men and women on the same team: the release roster had Alexia Putellas, Erling Haaland, Kevin De Bruyne and Kylian Mbappé tied for the highest overall rating at 91.
Similarly, Icons and Hero included women's footballers for the first time, with the initial five Icons being Mia Hamm, Birgit Prinz, Homare Sawa, Camille Abily and Kelly Smith. The men's Icons at release were Zico, Bobby Charlton and Franck Ribéry. The first three women's Heroes were Nadine Keßler, Sonia Bompastor and Alex Scott. There were two Teams of the Year for the first time, with the addition of a Women's Team of the Year for gamers and fans to vote on, in addition to the Men's Team of the Year. After the 4-3-3 Teams of the Year were revealed, gamers also voted for a 12th player for both teams from the remaining nominees.
TeamGoalkeeperDefendersMidfieldersForwards12th Player
Men's

Clubs and VOLTA Football

Clubs and VOLTA Football modes remained mostly unchanged, with updated graphics and more game options. EA Sports FC 24 also introduced cross-platform play in the modes, for users on same-generation consoles, thereby expanding cross-play to all of the game's online multiplayer modes.

Nintendo Switch updates

The FIFA video games released for the Nintendo Switch since FIFA 20 had been "legacy" editions, each preserving the same game as FIFA 19 with only minor updates over multiple releases. EA Sports FC 24 was the first game to have a substantial update on Nintendo Switch, bringing it closer in line with the version for other platforms.
The Frostbite game engine was used to run the Switch version for the first time, providing similar gameplay to the PlayStation 4 and Xbox One versions of the game. The Ultimate Team experience and VOLTA Football were also improved in line with the general version, but despite this, the Switch game does not support cross-platform play with either PlayStation 4 or Xbox One. The use of Frostbite included capping the frame rate at 30fps, when previously it had been higher.
The HyperMotion technology is not available on Switch, and there was no Ultimate Edition released for Switch.

Platform availability

Licenses

On 10 May 2022, EA Sports and FIFA announced that their long-term licensing agreement would end upon its conclusion on 31 December 2022, following a one-year extension to allow for the release of FIFA 23. On the same day, EA announced that their football video game franchise FIFA would be rebranded under the name EA Sports FC in 2023 and that they were retaining the licenses to players, teams, stadiums, and leagues. New licenses acquired for EA Sports FC 24 include a variety of women's leagues, including Spain's Liga F and Germany's Frauen-Bundesliga. EA also revealed at a game presentation event in July 2023 that they had made exclusive deals with UEFA, England's Premier League and Spain's La Liga, and would include their competitions in the EA Sports FC series.
Roma, Atalanta, Lazio and Napoli are not featured in EA Sports FC 24 due to their exclusivity agreements with rival game eFootball, and are instead known as Roma FC, Bergamo Calcio, Latium, and Napoli FC respectively. The game retains the players' likenesses, but the official badge, kits and stadiums are replaced with custom designs and generic stadiums created by EA Sports. Bayern Munich and Barcelona feature in the game with licensed players and kits, but in generic stadiums due to lack of stadium licenses.
As well as the game continuing to have an iconic soundtrack, several musical artists partnered with EA to design kits that could be used in the game. Kits designed by Michaël Brun and Obongjayar were available for purchase, while one designed by the Rolling Stones was unlockable. The Rolling Stones kit in the game was released shortly after Barcelona and Barcelona Femení players wore a real Rolling Stones kit, with both featuring the iconic logo.
EA Sports FC 24 is also the first game in the franchise to include the license of the Ballon d'Or.
In English, Guy Mowbray and Sue Smith act as the secondary commentary team in the game's Kick-off and Ultimate Team modes, alternating with Derek Rae & Stewart Robson.
In November 2023, it was announced that EA Sports had picked up the rights for the UEFA Euro 2024 video game, and that the Euro 2024 final tournament downloadable update would be coming to EA Sports FC 24, EA Sports FC Mobile, and EA Sports FC Online in the summer of 2024. Likewise, 2024 Copa América content was added to EA Sports FC 24's Ultimate Team and EA Sports FC Mobile in June 2024, although a standalone tournament mode was not made available in the game.