It’s that time of year again. The next incarnation of FIFA is just around the corner and the guys at EA Sports are already promoting dubious-sounding new features like ”emotional intelligence” and ”dynamic match presentation”.
Effectively what that means for FIFA 15 is that players, fans and commentators will all react more realistically to events on and off the pitch.
“During gameplay our Emotional Intelligence feature connects all 22 players on the pitch,” says EA in the video above. “Each player has a feeling or attitude towards every other play on the pitch, which evolves positively or negatively over time depending on how the match plays out.”
Say your star striker is having a bit of a Fernando Torres. His team-mates will be supportive at first, but get gradually more frustrated with each glaring miss. Likewise, if you spend your time kicking a particular player across the pitch, he’ll get increasingly angry as the match goes on. Fans, meanwhile, will have a greater variety of localised chants and celebrations, which the commentary team will occasionally comment on. Every other sodding minute if FIFA 14 is anything to go by.
This all sounds like EA trying to find a more marketing-friendly way of saying “we’ve got more in-game cutscenes and stuff” to me. I’ve heard so many dodgy promises and fancy-pants new features over the years that I’m reserving my right to remain entirely cynical.
FIFA 15 will be a (hopefully) slightly better version of the football game we played last year. Really, that’s enough. It’s out on September 25 in North America and September 26 in Europe.
