FIFA 15 is due out later this year, and it comes at the tail end of EA’s journey to make FIFA the one stop sports brand. FIFA is massive, and it has accomplished this by being not just a quality game every single year, but also by delivering something new that compels people to upgrade annually. It’s a staggering feat, and today, FIFA is a surefire success every year, right up there with Call of Duty, Assassin’s Creed, Battlefield, and Pokemon.
Given that, what does EA actually think is the reason for this mammoth success?
“Ultimately, we want to make a game that people enjoy playing,” producer Nick Channon told VG247. “It seems obvious but it’s true. We aim to make the best game that we can every single year, and we’ll continue to do that.”
Alright, so what have they added to their game this year that makes it the best? How is FIFA 15 any different from FIFA 14? EA’s answer: one major change is the goalkeepers.
“We’ve completely rewritten them,” said Channon. “It took us two years. Keepers now have much more intelligence to make decisions on the fly. We now have the processing power to do it. We can branch animation, letting them dive in one way whereas previously they would just dive and deflect. There are really big changes to how the animations now play; it makes it much more fluid.”
FIFA 15 launches on literally every platform under the sun, sans the Wii U, later this year. Stay tuned.