This lets you pump in the typically dazzling soundtrack, which offers Bad Bunny bangers and underground earworms from DOSS and Cryalot. The exhausting match commentary is back with a vengeance, but after hearing “he dispatched it with aplomb” one too many times, I was giddily reminded that this year you can turn it all off and attempt to undo the years of psychic damage from all the negging about your play style. Defenders will poke their leg around the back of a player they’re jockeying, and keepers react convincingly when they don’t have vision, diving to the floor as a defender blocks or stumbling backwards to swat a deflected ball. It’s primarily seen in player animations on the pitch rather than actual faces, which still vary wildly in quality between cover stars, regular players, and the cultish crowd. This turns tackling with the last man back into a risky but inherently thrilling endeavour.įIFA 23 also includes a visual upgrade – though it’s far more iterative and gradual than last year’s leap to PS5 and Series X – focusing this time on scuff-happy grass and bouncy hairdos. Rogue tackles will also leave you wide open, as holding down the associated buttons for too long can lead to a dangerous, crunching commitment that sometimes pays off – but, more often than not, it leads to a nail-biting penalty. My fingers hurt from pulling the triggers to jockey dangerous counter-attacks, and the intensity of a pass has to be fine-tuned, which is hard to master but satisfying when you place the perfect through ball. While it can’t escape the series’ perennial problem of being over-reliant on pacey players entirely, FIFA 23 does reward careful execution across the board.

This meta-shaking type of shot teases out the halcyon days of Francesco Totti hit-and-hope long shots seen in early 2010s FIFA, but don’t worry online multiplayer is still plagued with speedy wingers passing it across the box on the break. Get it right, though, and if the forward has enough space, it’s likely to end up in the back of the net, regardless of how far out you are.

Pivot swat game