EA FC Partners With Opta for More Authentic PlayStyles

Lifelike gameplay from individual players has always been crucial to football games, and EA FC is about to take it to a new level. Revealed on the massive livestream, there are plenty of improvements coming to individual player uniqueness for EA Sports FC, and one of those is called PlayStyles.

What is PlayStyles in EA Sports FC 24?

This new feature is helpfully described by EA themselves, so let's see what they say.

"PlayStyles dimensionalise athletes, going beyond overall ratings to bring to life the on-pitch abilities that make players special. PlayStyles comes from real-world player data from Opta and other sources, affecting gameplay and giving players unique capabilities that make their way of playing look and feel more authentic. PlayStyles+ enhance those signature abilities to world-class standard - think Haaland’s Power Shot - reflecting elite players’ abilities to play at a level that few others can reach."

Yea, that wasn't super helpful actually. So what does EA mean by all this? Well, all PlayStyles really means is that if you are controlling Vinicius Jr and dribbling down the left wing he will look and feel like Vinicius Jr. The same goes for Sam Kerr, Erling Haaland, and every other elite player.

How deep PlayStyles goes down the leagues is unclear, but we can assume that the best players in EA Sports FC 24 will have their signature styles. Of course a lot of this is focused on attackers, but we hope there will be some familiar lunge tackles from Gabriel and stiff headers from Harry Maguire too.

This is all possible thanks to EA partnering with Opta and other player data outfits to fully map out what players can do and bring it into the game. This should be a fairly "live service" element with fresh animations coming into the game as the season goes, though again it might be contained to big name players and

What else is changing in gameplay?

EA Sports FC is getting a nice upgrade from the Frostbite engine this year. One of the big improvements comes from something called Sapien character technology.

This was on display from the Madden 24 reveals last month and is a huge upgrade on the player skeleton and underlying movement of each person on the pitch. It means that athletic turns, physical battles, and ball striking should all look more realistic.

EA FC 24 release date

We finally have an official EA Sports FC 24 release date. You can start your new journey on 29 September. This release date is right in line with previous years, rather than an earlier one that was rumoured.

However, you can get playing earlier than this. If you pre-order the Ultimate Edition before 22 August you can get a massive SEVEN DAYS early access and start playing from 22 September.