FIFA 12 sold 3.2 million copies in its first week, making it the fastest selling sports video game of all time. It's since shifted well over 10m copies. That's a tough act to follow in anyone's language
Now consider this: every change, every tweak, every tuck and every addition to FIFA 13 has the potential to lose audience members. This isn't to say players will automatically switch to the competition - Pro Evo is nowhere near being a threat to FIFA's dominance yet - but any change that doesn't sit well with FIFA's growing audience runs the risk that players won't automatically update to FIFA 13 from last year's iteration.
This year's big new feature is FIFA 13's new First Touch Control mechanic, which promises to lend the game a more unpredictable nature than in previous FIFA entries. In FIFA 12, for an example, a long pass would find its way onto a player's boot as though the ball and boot were magnetized. Now players will have to allow for bounces, weather conditions, players entering their personal space and the overall skill level of the player they're controlling in order to successfully control a lobbed pass.
"It's not just about taking poor touches," says Channon, "This is just a way more realistic way to see and play football. It's all about implementing a limitless variety of outcomes all over the pitch."
First touch takes some getting used to, as players need to be aware more than ever of opponents running up on them. A mistimed chest or touch by a defender can plant the ball firmly in the path of an attacker and open up an easy shot on goal. Furthermore, if they have the required skill level and speed, a player can knock the ball around an opposing player and sprint straight past them.
Alongside this new game-changing feature, FIFA 13 boasts a brand new attacking AI, new free-kick options, better dribbling controls - based on FIFA Street's dribbling engine - and a new physicality in the gameplay, which allows for more aggressive, body-checking play when it comes to the battle for possession of the ball. All of these features have been well documented in first-look coverage, but FIFA 13's longevity with a lot of players is based around its Career Mode, which EA have been tight-lipped about... until now.
Away from the pitch there's the new manager mode, which is presided over by Santiago Jaramillo, the Lead Modes Producer. Once again, the brief for the developers seems to have been to take what worked so well in FIFA 12 and build on its impressive foundations. As was the case last year, player-managers have to listen to the concerns of their players in order to ensure decent morale and give them time on the pitch to make sure they maintain form.
This year, however, EA Canada has worked hard to ramp up the level of authenticity in the transfer window. In fact, says Jaramillo, they've completely rewritten the logic that dictates what happens in the game's transfer market.
"Last year, players just had a price tag attached to them and clubs wouldn't really look at how important certain players were to them," he says, "so if another team made an offer and the money was right, they'd go. You'd see a lot of churn in the big names - every transfer window, for example, David Silva would move to a new club."
The new transfer system also factors in aspects such as player form, age, morale, club rivalries and the amount of time a player still has left on their contract. This dictates their price-tag, but managers may have to make other concessions; they may have to, for example, guarantee first team play in the position of their target's choice, and sell players who are competing for the same position in the squad. If they renege on agreed conditions, their new acquisition's morale will plummet and they may even hand in a transfer request.
Like last year, managers can still blur their transfer and salary budgets in the transfer windows to help them secure targets for their club. They can also - in a new feature - offer a player as part of an acquisition bid. The player they offer as part of a transfer has no say in whether they leave the club, although if the deal falls through, their morale may dip significantly.
At pitch level, players who want to advance through the club ranks will have a more realistic progression. In last year's FIFA 12, players could simply create an avatar, decide where on the pitch they'd like to play and then select the club of their choice with no problems. It's a bit different this year, as players will need to ensure their footballer is the right skill level for the club they want to play at.
The example Jaramillo shows is a player who eventually wants to be selected for Barcelona's first team. Since they begin the game at a low level - overall rating 65 - they won't be first choice at Nou Camp for a while. If they sign at Barcelona at the beginning of the career mode, the club will immediately send them out on loan to build up their skills and see how they perform. Alternately, they could sign with a club in a less prestigious league - say, the Vancouver Whitecaps - and prove themselves there before moving on.
"We didn't want to have the situation we had last year," says Jaramillo, "where you sign for Barcelona, say, and Messi is immediately benched. That's just not real. We'd be giving you an artificial experience."
The biggest addition to the manager/player modes is the addition of internationals.
"The number one request from most players from manager mode would be the chance to manage or play for their favourite international team. That's exactly what we've done this year."
In past iterations of FIFA, players have been able to select international teams for exhibition games and even create their own tournaments to compete in against the AI. However, for FIFA 13, the experience of playing in or managing an international team has been woven into the career mode - provided the player is good enough, that is.
"As you know, you have certain goals to accomplish as a manager and as a player at the club you choose," says Jaramillo, "and depending on whether your achieving them or you're overachieving them, nations who are looking at your actions will contact you to manage - or play for - their national side."
Jaramillo says that a large chunk of the FIFA team has been dedicated to 'getting internationals right'. This means that everything from team selection, to press reactions, to new match atmospheres, to national anthems to fixtures has reportedly been implemented. Players will be able to compete in both qualifiers and tournaments for the European Championship, the World Cup, and the Confederation Cup. Whether this means we've seen the last of a FIFA World Cup title is unconfirmed, but for the next year, at least, players will be able to compete for both club and country.
Alongside the improvement to Career Mode, FIFA 13 has built a brand new mode in the form of Skill Games. These are essentially a selection of 32 mini-games based around the different disciplines in football; passing, crossing, dribbling, shooting, advanced shooting, lobs, taking penalties and taking free kicks. Players can enjoy the Skill Games in a standalone mode, or they can dip in and out of them as they replace the goalie vs player one-on-one mini-game that takes place between matches.
The Skill Games are weirdly compelling; they start off at a rather easy difficulty level (Bronze), which quickly becomes tantalizingly hard (Silver and then Gold). The Bronze level of crossing, for example, tasks the player with hitting some fairly large targets in the box by lobbing in a cross from a marked area down the wing. If they succeed in doing this, players will then have to cross the ball from further away, and hit smaller targets. We didn't get to the Gold level in the time we had at the game's controls.
The Skill Games also pull off a neat trick, enticing players to compete for bragging rights while familiarizing them with the game's controls at the same time. Players who couldn't be bothered to improve at free kicks, penalties and finesse shots now have a couple of decent reason to do so; beyond showing off to mates on the leaderboards, the Skill Games (like everything else in FIFA 13 award players with XP that feeds into their standing in the EA Sports Football Club.
Channon says that a big part of FIFA 13 is aimed at rewarding players for picking up a copy of FIFA 12 the year before. As was the case with last year's iteration, players earn XP for competing both on and offline and successfully completing weekly EAFC challenge scenarios, which boost their position on the global leaderboards. However, FIFA 13 introduces something called the EA Sports Football Club Catalogue, which Channon says is a series items players can unlock within the game.
"As you earn XP you'll also earn what we're calling Football Club Credits," says Channon, "and you'll be able to take these to purchase different components and different features to enhance your overall experience."
"Some of these are purely cosmetic - such as balls, boots, kits - but some of them are also game-changing aspects, too," says Channon.
When pressed on this, Channon reveals that not only will players be able to edit squad members - for the first time, they'll be able to make sure Alexandre Song's ridiculous hair-do is up to date in their game for the entire season - but they'll also unlock useful items in Career Mode. One example of this is a fast-track free pass into the job of international manager for players who don't fancy grinding away in Career Mode until their job-level rating meets the necessary requirements for a national call-up.
