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SPORTbible Chats To EA Sports' Gameplay Producer Sam Rivera About All Things FIFA 18

SPORTbible Chats To EA Sports' Gameplay Producer Sam Rivera About All Things FIFA 18

Get the complete lowdown on the latest game in the FIFA franchise...

Josh Lawless

Josh Lawless

The excitement for the worldwide release of FIFA 18 on 29 September is kicking in, and not too long ago, when EA Sports held a capture event which enabled a select, lucky group of people to play the game, we spoke to EA Sports' Gameplay producer Sam Rivera to get all the vital information on the latest game in the FIFA franchise, and how it has gone up another gear.

SPORTbible: After all the hours racked in putting the game together, how excited are you for the worldwide release?

Sam Rivera: We're really excited. I can tell you that I've been out here in London for this event [FIFA 18 capture] and I've been speaking to a lot of people, including some of the best FIFA players in the world - and they are really enjoying the game and are excited to play the full game on September 29. We've had a lot of feedback on our gameplay; it's more responsive, it's more fluid. We're very excited.

SPORTbible: The games tend to improve year on year in terms of realism, the gameplay and obviously some new features coming in. How has FIFA 18 gone up another gear from FIFA 17?

Sam Rivera: I would say it's definitely a more fluid game and that it because of the brand new system, it's called 'real player motion technology'. With this, movement is much more fluid and because also it's frame by frame, the players are more responsive and can execute your commands quicker - the player reacts to your controls right away. But also there's more personality, you will see different players, take Ronaldo for example, or Jordi Alba, or Suarez, or Robben - they also look more realistic and play like they do in real-life. This is going to be a game-changer for us in gameplay and a lot of people have told us that this is the biggest year we have in gameplay.


SPORTbible: What was the process in developing that feature? How did it all come about?

Sam Rivera: Basically we have a team who only work on technologies for the future - this is not something we can do right away, it is a fundamental change. These people have been working on this for years and working with them, and the technology, we can apply those movements of the player and make sure we get to the next level in fluidity and response. It was a really long process, as I say it wasn't a one-year thing.

SPORTbible: The Journey mode, with Alex Hunter and his story last year went down a treat and it was the addition to FIFA that fans had been wanting for a while and it looks as though there's even more possibilities in 'The Journey - Hunter Returns'. What can you tell us about this year and the improvements made?

Sam Rivera: First of all, the story has a lot of things that are more interesting. You will be travelling around the world - you go to Brazil, then to LA - and there's more characters that you meet; there's a basketball player, Ronaldo and more. There's more possibilities, you can now customise your Alex Hunter and change his look and style, and also there will be chapters so you will always have an objective to play for in the games.

Also, you can play offline with your friends, with more than one user controlling the team where Alex Hunter plays, and another thing is that your decisions have a bigger impact in what Alex Hunter can experience. So if you played today and I played today, when we go and talk about it we may not have anything in common because your experience will be different. That is very important, there are more options based on your performance on the pitch and your actions off the pitch. There's some surprises - unfortunately I cannot talk about them but expect some things in there!

SPORTbible: And what about Career Mode as well, is what's the bread and butter of the game and we've seen that there's going to be new signings being unveiled, release clauses included as well. Is that something you've been looking to bring in for a while now, to add to the realism of the game?

Sam Rivera: Yeah, for sure. We have the release clauses and resale clauses and the real-time announcements because you don't wait to wait for an email, right? So you can just go to the club, they tell you how much money they want for a player and if you accept then right away you can click "No" or Yes" and that real-time is the way you do your transfers in career mode. It's probably the most important part of the mode, building your team. And also the breaking news you have, there's a like a video that will create a more immersive experience. You will see when you sign a player, how he is presented and entered into the team, and I think it's all to create that emotional connection with the mode and be a bit more like it would be in real life.


SPORTbible: Ultimate Team is obviously also a huge part of the game? What adjustments have been made there?

Sam Rivera: There are a number of different, new features in there. The first thing is the 'Icons' and the fact they are available for every console and also that there's three versions of them; one at the beginning of their career when they were good but it was the early days, the prime and finally the ending of the career. The stats will be different and by the prime, they will get the highest stats they've ever had on any FIFA before. It really translates to the experience in gameplay because we've made sure that every part of them affects the game so you can experience the excitement and you really want to get those 'Icons in your team.

There's also the 'Squad Battles' which is a mode created based on feedback from our a fans. People wanted an offline, competitive mode where you can get rewards - so you play against AI controlled teams and these teams are going to be changing pretty much every day and the better you play, the higher difficulty level, the better the rewards you are going to get. And also, another way to get rewards is through objectives. There's going to be daily and weekly objectives, the daily ones are going to be different for everybody - so there will be a very big pool of objectives and it will be very unlikely that you and your friend get the same one. And the weekly ones, the higher the objective, the more rewards you get.

And finally the 'Champions Channel' is for people who really want to get better and more skilful. They can go and watch the replay of the top matches that happened during the weekend league, so you can see exactly how they best players in the world are winning their games - that's quite important.

SPORTbible: Going back to the 'Icons', it's obviously spearheaded by Ronaldo with the 'Icon Edition'. How much do you think players will enjoy rolling back the years with him and the other 'Icons'?

Sam Rivera: I think they are really going to enjoy it because as I mentioned before, in gameplay we really tried to capture every point and attribute for each player and it really changes how it feels in passing, shooting and dribbling. You definitely notice the difference and it's going to create excitement.

SPORTbible: The player ratings have been released and there's been lots of debates about certain players being rated higher and what not. How you decide the ratings?

Sam Rivera: There is a team that only deal with attributes, it's a very big team in fact and they have people watching all the players in all of the league's all around the world, and then all the data gets sent to the central team, who spend many hours every day just discussing the attributes for each player and then they put them in the game. Nothing is one person's decision, everything is decided as a team and there's going to be debate, right? It's a subjective thing but the attributes and stats are very important for our fans so we need a big team of people working just on that.

SPORTbible: A few weeks back people were freaking out about FIFA Street coming to the game but you've since said it's not the case. What can you tell us about the supposed 'leaked footage' that was doing the rounds?

Sam Rivera: Basically we are not saying there's a FIFA Street or anything like that at the moment. There were some pictures that got leaked - it could be a surprise, I don't know! But at the moment, there is no FIFA Street.


SPORTbible: Is it something that you think we could see again down the line at some point?

Sam Rivera: I don't know, in the future anything can happen. But right now, I've been told that there's no FIFA Street. What I can tell you, for sure, is that we are aware that a lot of our fans care about that [FIFA Street] and are asking for that.

Featured Image Credit: EA Sports

Topics: FIFA 18