There’s a very good chance that I will never play a game of FIFA 15. But I might watch a couple, and not just because everyone’s in those cute wee shorts. It’s easy to write an annual sports franchise off as a bit dull because not much changes – but those incremental improvements are probably far more noticeable if you’ve spent your life watching and playing the sport.
EA’s touting some of these changes that are making FIFA 15 look eerily like watching a real match on the telly.
Players are still in uncanny valley, especially their faces, which look like creepy latex masks, but the new lighting system and body rigging looks like it will go a long way to making them look more natural. Little touches like the heaving of chests when breathing, hair movement and the way that clothing doesn’t look like it’s been glued onto flesh are pushing the game ever closer to the point where, at a brief glance, it looks like a real football man playing with his pals in the park.
The pitch and stadium haven’t been left behind either. Moisture gets kicked up with grass, and the ground gets weathered and muddy after all those chaps run over it in their funny studded shoes. Goal frames and corner flags will be affected by the ball hitting them as well, bending and reverberating or, in the case of the frame, even lifting off the ground if the ball is travelling fast.
It’s not clear if other elements like biting will be implemented.