With the new generation of consoles now upon us, many games from the previous gen are offering updates to give them souped-up performance and a new lick of paint. Not least among these is EA's behemothic FIFA franchise, with FIFA 21 being the recipient of said upgrades for PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X/S.
We were invited to a presentation by EA in which they showed us some of these new bells and whistles, giving a brief look into what players can expect to see when this free update drops on December 4th. Note that it's only free if you already own the game (obviously) otherwise it'll set you back £70 for the game and the upgrade on new consoles.
The most immediately impressive part of the update are undoubtedly the new visuals. As part of the presentation we saw a comparison still of Lionel Messi where his beard was much more full and luxurious, while a short clip of Liverpool goalkeeper Allison showed his hair glistening and moving in what seemed like individual strands under the floodlights of Anfield.
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Thanks to the powerful new consoles we also saw an impressive amount of new muscle definition on Paul Pogba's legs when he kicked a ball, ball compression upon impact (which will hopefully make the physics a little more robust and solid) and impressive new lighting thanks to ray-tracing. There's also a brand new camera angle they're calling EA Sports Game Cam, which will give a more television-style view of the match and allowing a slight tactical advantage by opening up more of the pitch.
The PlayStation 5's DualSense controller also gets a chance to show what it's capable of, with haptic feedback and the adaptive triggers becoming stiffer as each player begins to tire on the pitch. FIFA 21 will run at 60fps with 4k resolution, making the suit of new player movements, both on and off the ball, pop. Those movements include players acting more like, y'know, actual humans when they're not on the ball by doing things like sorting their hair out and shooting snot rockets. No seriously.
It's not all good news though - if you can call high-res nose clearing good news. For example, there's no cross-play between console generations online, and PC players won't be getting the upgrade at all. The FUT market will be cross-gen for player purchases and progress for FUT and Volta will carry over, but those playing career mode sadly are shafted, as their progress will be lost.
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All these visual improvements are certainly impressive, and I can't help but think that this is the visual lift FIFA has been waiting for, for what feels like 4 or 5 generations of the game. As mentioned, owners of the new consoles and a copy of FIFA 21 need to keep your eyes peeled for the update drop on December 4th.
Featured Image Credit: EA