STACK #143 Sept 2016

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GAMES FEATURE

FIFA 17 takes the world's leading sports sim in a new direction. Prepare for The Journey.

Words Paul Jones

"W ho’s your team?” asks FIFA 17 creative director Matt Prior. “Gillingham, mate,” I reply, awaiting the inevitable smirk that usually follows this admission. “Nice one. Keeping it real!” To be honest, I’m just happy he’s heard of them. Prior and I are sat opposite each other in a football-shaped media booth. An international PR representative looks on with disinterest, incessantly dragging her thumb across a smartphone screen. There are few gaming titles that pique our interest on an annual basis more than FIFA. An office favourite, good to play by yourself, or even better to ruin someone’s evening in a far flung region of the planet with a late gasp winner. Come late September, there’s only one game on our mind. One of the most significant developments in FIFA’s recent history was migrating the game to the Frostbite engine for PC, PS4 and Xbox One; a platform utilised right across the publisher’s developer stable. “The look of the games, the visuals, are incredible on Frostbite,” Prior says excitedly. It brings a whole new level of authenticity

easier for us, which means we can focus on adding cool stuff and more of it in the game.“ The FIFA modus operandi in recent iterations has been focused on improving key areas of gameplay in manageable chunks. This has included tweaks to the mechanics for attack, defence, midfield play, penalties, free kicks and goalkeepers. While it feels like a constant work in progress, notable innovation in the FIFA franchise has come via the introduction of FIFA Ultimate Team, the aforementioned mechanic gameplay enhancements and some revision around the career modes. However, by harnessing the power of Frostbite, FIFA 17 will see the introduction of a single-player campaign mode called The Journey. Prior describes The Journey as a “kind of peek behind the curtain of football.” The premise is an enticing one. Playing as fictional greenhorn Alex Hunter, The Journey follows his fledgling career at Manchester United, both on and off the pitch, in a compelling simulation of the life of a professional football player in the most popular league in the world: the Premier League.

and inertia to the game; the lighting is all new as well. “The other big thing that [working on Frostbite] brings to us, is our ability to cooperate with other teams. You can imagine with 20 teams all on different engines, solving problems is very difficult. There was very little studio collaboration, so, with a move to Frostbite, it allows much better cooperation between teams, and more importantly, much quicker problem solving. Essentially it is making games

SEPTEMBER 2016

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