FIFA 19 was one of the biggest recent improvements in the FIFA franchise, with the kick-off sequence completely revamped, and Alex Hunter's journey to Champions League star culminating in a thrilling third year of The Journey.
For FIFA 20, there's no fourth year of Alex and the Hunter family, nor are there the huge revamps we saw in FIFA 19. Instead, it seems FIFA 20 will be an iterative upgrade, although several new match types and gameplay improvements may go some way to pick up the slack.
Here's everything you need to know about FIFA 20.
Be the best on the streets.
Prove your chops on the pitch, where the rules are few and far between. Volta Football brings new match types from street football around the world — it's not enough to be the best 11v11; can you do it in a professional futsal arena as well?
What is FIFA 20?
FIFA 20 is the 27th edition of the annual FIFA franchise developed by EA Sports. First published in 1993 and annually since, it allows you to play various types of soccer matches. In FIFA 19, the franchise gained the rights to use the Champions League name and, in tandem, launched an entirely new kick-off experience that tracks historical performance per match type and opponent strength.
Is The Journey in FIFA 20?
Sadly not! FIFA 19 featured the third and final installment of Alex Hunter and the soccer pedigree of his family from grandad Jim Hunter to sister Kim Hunter. Alex's rise from nothing to global star comes to an end, although FIFA is embracing a different type of soccer in FIFA 20.
Viva La Volta Football
The biggest change in FIFA 20 is the addition of new street football kick off types. Bringing the gameplay of FIFA Street to the main edition of the franchise, Volta will offer 3v3, 4v4 and 5v5 match types, each with different rules as you'd find in professional futsal.
Volta Football is also where men and women can finally share a pitch together, with the inability to play mixed gender matches a key criticism of the franchise to-date. Volta is a key reason we're excited for FIFA 20 and we can't wait to try it out.
Football Intelligence – AI meets soccer
AI is the buzzword in every tech-related industry at the moment, and FIFA 20 is no different. FIFA 20 is all about something called "football intelligence", which essentially has three core features. The first feature highlighted is "authentic game flow", which represents an increased understanding of the game for AI players. The promise is that this will improve defending so the AI is no longer the best way to defend.
EA is using AI to deliver "football intelligence" on the pitch.
As with every new edition of FIFA, there come tweaks and improvements to the controller and button options. The second feature "decisive movements" brings four new things to learn and master: Strafe Dribbling, Set Piece Refresh, Composed Finishing and Controller Tackling. Essentially, they are key upgrades to parts of the attacking experience, something that you'll want to master quickly.
The third feature is "better ball physics" which promises to make FIFA 20 even more realistic. There's likely to be several improvements and minor tweaks here to learn, but the two highlighted so far are new shot trajectories and more realistic tackling. What these mean in actual gameplay we're not sure, but we can't wait to see the new shot trajectories – the new shooting option in FIFA 19 wasn't particularly useful so there's definitely room for improvement.
What else is new in FIFA 20?
Beyond the key improvements and features highlighted so far, there's very little else we know about FIFA 20. We assume there'll be slight changes and tweaks to the staples of the franchise such as Ultimate Team and Career Mode, but we don't know what these will entail yet. However, there's plenty of time until FIFA 20 goes on sale, so we'll likely hear much more about the game in the weeks and months to come.
When can I play FIFA 20?
FIFA 20 is currently available to pre-order and will release for PlayStation 4, Xbox One, Nintendo Switch and PC on or around September 27, 2019. Pre-ordering will get you access to the game three days early (September 24), while EA Access members get access over a week before general release on September 19, 2019.
Be the best on the streets.
Prove your chops on the pitch, where the rules are few and far between. Volta Football brings new match types from street football around the world — it's not enough to be the best 11v11; can you do it in a professional futsal arena as well?
