FIFA 20 Demo Review: Subtle improvements give EA's new game a greater feel

EA have secretly dropped the FIFA 20 Demo on September 10th for those of you who could not get a hold of the Beta.

With only two weeks before the launch of FIFA 20, RealSport dives into whether the demo holds any promising features… or leaves a bad taste for the up coming Football game.

The Demo includes Volta Football and a Champions League 11v11 Kick off mode, for its Fanbase to dig their teeth into; allowing them to adjust to its changes over the next couple of weeks for the official launch of FIFA 20.

New Gameplay Features

Firstly, when loading up the demo, you are greeted with a new gameplay features page, which highlights two new mechanics that will be introduced in to FIFA 20 come September 24th.

Both Football Intelligence and Player Instinct.

EA conveys that Football Intelligence is an unprecedented platform for realism; further illustrating their focus on three categories for the new FIFA 20. These are Decisive movements, Player Instinct and Ball Motion.

Football Intelligence is intended to allow its players to feel as though the arcade football sim is as close to the real thing.

This coupled with the new Player Instinct feature, which allows AI controlled players to consider the best timing and positions on the pitch is great news… as I for one have broken a few controllers from AI mistakes costing me a crucial game in FUT, and Kick Off against mates.

However was it any good? Yes!

When playing the game you can feel the small changes such as the AI imitating user-controlled movements and both the realism in ball motion and player movements, which struggled to exist in FIFA 19.

New neat features

Don’t know if this has been posted or not but this is great!!! from FIFA

The Reddit user @brodzz93 pointed out the new feature of being able to turn off the Score Clock Drop down on the visual page in settings.

One user explained how "this is great. I don't want to know my passing and possession stats in the middle of my build up play."

Its small changes like this one that EA add, that will keep its players happy and less likely to get frustrated with things that is out of their control, which could cost them the game.

Champions League Teams

The team's available in the Kick off feature are:

Borussia Dortmund
Chelsea
Liverpool
Paris Saint-Germain
Real Madrid
Tottenham Hotspur

Having played with all the team's at some point since its release at 3pm BST September 10th, it's fair to say that they all feel good to use and like any FIFA previously, they each have players that are head heights better than the rest.

However, it is the Demo and players, teams, abilities, gameplay and much more is all subject to change. An example of this is that the Demo has been marked as slow by players.

The Demo for each FIFA has always been slower than what it is like on launch day; this can therefore be expected to be sped up and become quicker.

Controller Settings

One Reddit user has depicted all the new controller settings available in the FIFA 20 Demo, which can be controlled, that previously have not.

Controller Settings - New ways to affect gameplay from FIFA

As DrakeyL31L mentions how that with the addition of these settings could allow for the more experienced players to further their skill gap against the casual players.

This is because if players can utilise them to become better in defence and to turn off things that AI players would do in FIFA 19 that ruined defence mechanics in the game can only be a positive.

The former World and European FIFA champion highlights his skills in the FIFA 20 Demo and explains why Mbappe will be a must have in FUT in FIFA 20 this year.

Volta Football

Being a Demo it's understandable that EA does not want to put all its cards on the table; which encourages people to pre-order and buy the game before launch.

However, would it have been hard just to give us a little bit more of what's to come in the final game?

You will only be allowed to play a short 3v3 game, which is won by the first team reaching 4 goals. We wanted to see more of Volta on the demo but this was the only snippet we got to play so far.

Although from what we can gather, Volta Football is a game mode that can really put itself ahead of its competition with the likes of PES 2020.

This is because of the unpredictability of the game mode and all the little things there is to learn and master, such as skills and movement as well as being able to scout players into your 3v3, 4v4 and 5v5 teams in the final version.

Verdict

In conclusion, EA have listened to feedback from its players to ensure that they get the right mix of realism and the classic arcade Football sim feeling.

With the movement mechanics simulating real life Football games this can only be seen as a positive.

However, as more games are played we are certain that specific features in the game will become the meta and if not utilised, then could cause a lot of upset players. EA will have to keep on top of this to ensure, that balances occur often if needed.

This is still only the Demo, and there is still much more to be discovered when the full version of the game is released.

Let us know what you think so far about the Demo down below in the comments.

RealSport Rating 7/10

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