EA Sports FC 24 vs FIFA 23: what are the major differences?

After its much-publicised split from FIFA branding, Electronic Arts will forever release its annual "FIFA" games under its own EA Sports FC banner.

The first keeps the numbering nomenclature, however, and is called EA Sports FC 24 - or FC 24 for short.

But what of the gameplay, presentation and game modes, have those changed too? Here we look at all the major differences to give you an idea on just how much of an upgrade you're getting this year.

EA Sports FC 24 vs FIFA 23: cover star

Starting at the beginning, EA Sports FC 24 has changed its cover star from Kylian Mbappé, who has appeared on every FIFA cover for the last three years, to Erling Haaland.

This comes as no surprise really as EA clearly wants to give its new series a different look and Haaland has undoubtedly been the best young striker in the world over the last 12 months - scoring a staggering 52 goals in 53 appearances in his debut season for Manchester City across all competitions. He also won the European Champions League, plus the Premier League and FA Cup in England.

EA Sports FC 24 vs FIFA 23: menus and presentation

The user interface in EA Sports FC is totally different to the last few FIFA games, FIFA 23 included. It features a black background with a menu rail on the left-hand side. This includes all the major modes, such as Ultimate Team and Kick Off.

When you scroll through them, you will be given statistics, information on your team(s), and contextual buttons to click on to get to the next stage or screen more quickly.

This gets rid of the numerous rails you had to switch between in FIFA 23, and makes sure you can get into the game more quickly.

There are a number of other presentation tweaks too - including full renders of the commentary team for the first time. Alex Scott is in there, while Guy Mowbry and former England Women's forward, Sue Smith, join the team.

There are new matchday visuals and cutscenes, which include sequences that play at half- and full-time, plus as part of the menu whenever you pause the game.

Finally, bigger Ultimate Team matches will be treated accordingly, with a full, flame-filled match presentation, with fire cannons at the side of the pitch and generally more impressive visuals.

EA Sports FC 24 vs FIFA 23: players, kits and leagues

Even though EA has lost the FIFA licence, it retains the rights to use more than 19,000 real-life player names and images in the game, with many of them rendered for their virtual counterparts.

You can also expect to see all the same teams and leagues, including the latest versions of home, away and, often, third kits. There are actually more leagues this time too, with direct deals with a number of Women's leagues coming into force, including the Google Pixel Frauen-Bundesliga and Spain's Liga F represented in the game for the first time.

Player models are better than before too, with a new rendering technology - EA Sports Sapien - using sensors strapped to individual muscle groups during for more realistic motion capture and, therefore, body shapes.

Also, the new Hypermotion V engine uses volumetric motion capture for the first time. This enabled the development team to scan video footage of real matches to analyse and animate player motion during competitive play. Over 180 matches were fully scanned this way, resulting in animation that's far closer to real life - especially for the bigger stars and icons who appeared in those games.

EA Sports FC vs FIFA 23: modes

There have been improvements, new features and enhancements in every mode. You essentially get the exact same modes from FIFA 23, but EA Sports FC 24 elevates them to all new levels.

Pro Clubs and Volta

Pro Clubs has become just Clubs and gets a new season structure with better rewards and promotion system. It also gains cross-platform play for the first time, along with Volta.

Career modes

Manager Career and Player Career are also greatly enhanced too. Not only do you get PlayStyles within each mode - which makes a big difference to progression, as you can train your pro or players to adopt new PlayStyles (see below) - but you now get to sign with an agent, which helps during contract negotiations and transfers.

In addition, managers get to choose a tactical philosophy, such as tiki taka, gengenpress, or park the bus. This allows you then to train your players to better suit that style, and counter other teams with other types of tactics.

To help, there are coaches this year too, who can be hired and have tactical and development skill sets. Some will be better to help players train, others to improve the team's ability to play a certain style.

Ultimate Team

Ultimate Team is by far the most popular game mode and also comes with the single biggest change - female players are being added to the mode. They will be available in packs just like the male players, as well in SBCs, events, and any other UT area. There will also be female heroes and icons.

That increases the player pool in Ultimate Team by around 3,000 extra players, and both men and women can play in the same hybrid teams.

The only barrier to this is that chemistry returns and the women players are obviously from different leagues to the men. However, their nationality will still link across genders, while women who play for the same club will link with their male counterparts. For example, Chelsea Women's Sam Kerr will link directly with new Chelsea signing, Christopher Nkunku.

Other changes to chemistry include the fact that icons will now have a positive effect on cards around them, linking in better and raising other players' chemistry (much like Premium Shapeshifter's do in FIFA 23).

In addition, you will no longer have to modify a player's position to gain chemistry - all of their alternative playing positions will count if you have them in one of those areas in your team.

There will be six game modes in Ultimate Team in EA Sports FC 24, but we're yet to find out some of the newer ones (beyond Squad Battles, Division Rivals and UT Champions).

Last, but certainly not least, Evolutions is a new section in Ultimate Team that allows you to improve a player's stats or PlayStyles during multiple seasons. In FIFA 23, once a player (such as a silver or gold card) no longer has the statistics to be useful, you tended to either sell him or chuck him into an SBC. This time, you can assign him to be evolved, so that every time you play with him and her, you can aim to achieve certain criteria to level them up.

This can be done multiple times throughout the game and doesn't just apply to standard cards. Team of the Week players can also be entered into the evolution process. Also, as you get to choose whether you want to level up attributes or add PlayStyles (and eventually PlayStyles+) you can make that card quite different from someone else's evolved version.

It adds an all-new layer of interaction to Ultimate Team, that's for sure.

EA Sports FC 24 vs FIFA 23: gameplay

There are plenty of changes between EA Sports FC 24 and FIFA 23 on the pitch too.

As well as huge graphical upgrades to the players and even crowd in EA Sports FC 24, thanks to Sapien and a new lighting system, which uses ambient occlusion, player motion helps a game flow better. There is also less latency between button presses and a player reacting - ie. the animation kicking in.

AcceleRate 2.0 and body types

The ball flight mechanics have also improved, which isn't just a visual enhancement, while Accelerate 2.0 ensures that there are more player body types than explosive, lengthy and controlled.

Now you get seven running styles which will make a big difference on which players you'll want to add to your team in different positions.

You now get lengthy, mostly lengthy, controlled lengthy, controlled, controlled explosive, mostly explosive, and explosive. They have been tweaked too, with explosive especially being improved to be more useful this year.

PlayStyles

The other big addition is the aforementioned PlayStyles.

These effectively replace traits and come in three tiers: no PlayStyle, a PlayStyle, and a PlayStyle+. The latter is reserved for special and world class players only, plus your own pros and players that complete the maximum Evolutions.

Most of the traits in FIFA 23 are PlayStyles - such as Power Header and Finesse. Where PlayStyles differ is that they become easier to pull off the higher your player's tier in that style.

For example, if you have a player with a Dead Ball PlayStyle, you will get a slightly longer on-screen line to see where the ball will go and higher chance for it to follow that path. If you have a PlayStyle+, the line and arc will be longer still, as will the chance of success.

PlayStyles are an excellent addition and make matches far more interesting when you have players in your team with a variety of them.

Precision pass and controlled sprint dribble

There are two additions to passing and ball control. Passing now includes a swerve precision pass, which curls the ball around a defender into the path of a winger, say. While controlled sprint means you can keep hold of the ball more effectively, albeit at the loss of a little speed during a run.

There are also a few new skill moves and celebrations in EA Sports FC 24.

Conclusion

Of course, without the game being available yet, we're yet to try all of the new modes, moves and menus ourselves. We have played a pre-beta build of EA Sports FC 24 and are thoroughly impressed so far. But, that's only a tiny part of the final game.

We'll reserve full judgement for when we get to play the full experience. However, it's clear already that the development team have put their all into this new chapter for EA Sports. And it's very much shaping up to be the biggest leap in the football game series for many years.