EA’s massive football-sim franchise FIFA has unveiled details about its card-collecting game mode Ultimate Team for the next game in the annualised franchise. For the first time in a long time, FIFA’s pre-launch has been mostly successful. The right things have been said and fans have been satiated. That seems to be continuing with the driving principles behind this year’s upgrades to FUT. Revealed in the trailer above and in the Pitch Notes, the general aim is to reduce the obscene amount of time a player has to commit to the mode in order to make any kind of headway.With changes across the board, we are looking at major alterations to Division Rivals, FUT Champions, Co-op, Stadiums, and more. The major aim behind this shift is that the team want to “provide more transparent progression[,] reduce weekly match requirements[,] create a competitive environment for top players with the new Elite Division and leaderboard, and keep the Division Rivals experience feeling fresh throughout the year with the introduction of Seasons.” Looking at some of these, it seems like a change for the best. Division RivalsThe team is changing from the endless, often intangible, Division Rivals system to a ladder with clearer steps between ranks and grades. With checkpoints preventing major downturns in form and win streaks providing huge boosts in progress, this should substantially reduce the time taken walking back and forth over pointless progression every time the meta changes. Our major concern here would be the introduction of too many stages without enough tangible benefit for getting further, hence the increase in the number of FUT gamers playing non-competitive Friendlies for objectives last year. The Elite Division will be a tier in and of itself with a leaderboard for players to compete in. This drops those excellent players the chance to be in a Super League without messing around with the Accrington Stanley’s in the ladder. The Seasonal structure allows for reward resets after an allocated amount of time, just like last year’s Seasonal Objectives. This will be based on your progression up the ladder, though. This could be a good chance to reward people who are just playing the game for fun, rather than those who are winning game after game. FUT ChampionsFUT Champs, the highly competitive weekend mode, is getting an overhaul to increase accessibility. Since its introduction, the mode has been changing to make it manageable, because nobody, not even those playing it regularly, wants to be sinking 40 games a weekend. In FIFA 22, you earn points in Division Rivals to qualify as normal. Then, you play in Champions Playoffs with as much time as needed to complete the games over a six-week period. By getting enough points in the play-off — more for a win, less for a loss, but never nothing at all — you will get a Champions Finals Token that you can use to get into the hardest round of games. The points system is still in place, so you have a set number of games to earn X amount of points. More points equals a higher tier. Success at any of the tiers allows you to pick out a reward of your choosing. Since there has been no word on what these might be or how many matches you will have to play, our hope is that this isn’t just lip service, but an actual change for the better. Staggered Champions Modes will allow you to play over a longer duration, but hopefully don’t increase the matches needed for maximum points. Likewise, if the rewards are made non-essential by a constant barrage of high-tier cards that are devalued by the quantity of them on the market, who cares what you get to choose? So actually offering quality would be much more enticing for most players. OtherCo-op public matchmaking is coming, allowing you to hop into a lobby with randoms and try to play together. The squad will be generated by EA to avoid any clashes between teams that might be fighting to have their own players. The main menu is changing up, too. In essence, EA is going back to the menus that were around before the horrible scrolling up or down menus of last year and the nonsensical team building from the club menu. You can now tab between Home, Play, and Club, with access to your squad at any time by pressing down. Easy. One of the nerdiest changes (and thus one of the best) is the addition of a Player Item view that shows the best numerical attributes of a player when you look at their bio on the card. This will allow for easy comparisons and allow you to pick out attacker, midfielder, or defender traits. Special cards, like informs or the new FUT Heroes, will display attributes that are unique to that card. Speaking of, FUT Heroes are being introduced. In essence, these are Icons but with normal club and nationality chemistry. Better search filters on the transfer market are another welcome change. The unique FUT Stadium that you could customise is getting more options, like a VIP Area, Crowd Cards, Two Stick Banners, Crowd Flags, and additional TIFOs. There will be additional Gameplay settings for celebrations and competitive gameplay. What do you think of the changes? Do you like them or is this a whole lot of nothing? Let us know what you think in the comments!
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