STACK NZ September 2016 Issue 77

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"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
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
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.
FIFA 17 takes the world's leading sports sim in a
new direction. Prepare for The Journey.
Words Paul Jones
visit GAMES FEATURE
18 SEPTEMBER 2016
GAMES