FIFA 23: How this CLASSIC game could inspire EA's next generation

FIFA 23 is just around the corner, with a new generation of gaming arriving next year as well in the form of EA Sports FC.

EA has already been showcasing some of the brand new features coming to this year's game, with the new Player Career Mode features leading to some reminiscing about a classic mobile game that dominated our childhoods.

With that in mind, let's take a look at how this classic game could inspire the next generation of football gaming.

New Star Soccer

Published by New Star Games, New Star Soccer is a mobile game that allows you to take control of a player's career and guide them from club to club, hoovering up trophies and scoring plenty of goals in the process.

The game followed a simple mechanic of swiping your finger across the screen and arrowing the ball into the back of the net.

The game also allowed you to spend your wages, making purchases like Private Jets, or even entire resorts.

The game tasked you with managing relationships, ensuring you kept your manager, teammates and partners happy.

Fast-paced and addictive, New Star Soccer become a sensation, one that many people hold in high regard.

New Star Soccer - or NSS as its also known - was also freely available on many gaming websites, meaning that many school lessons were also spent flicking the ball around the pitch.

Inspiring FIFA 23

EA has announced a number of new features arriving in FIFA 23, with Player Career receiving a major overhaul.

Wages can now be spent, with decisions having an overall impact on your career trajectory and personality.

Many of these features we've seen before, with NSS potentially providing inspiration.

Of course, EA can majorly build on the foundations that NSS laid, but there's no doubting that the addictive mobile game must have had some inspiration, even subconsciously.

Further Influence

New Star Soccer may have already influenced the FIFA landscape in some way, but there are further lessons that EA can take from the classic game.

Whilst FIFA 23 will introduce the new features in player career at the most basic level, it's worth diving deeper into NSS to understand why players loved it so much.

Gaming is about escapism and immersion, taking people out of the day-to-day and into something completely different.

Whilst New Star Soccer couldn't totally immerse you with amazing cut-scenes and deeper mechanics, EA can.

The appetite for role-playing games has enhanced in recent years, and player career was always the easiest way for EA to implement this into the FIFA series.

With EA Sports FC on the horizon - and a big future ahead for FIFA - we think NSS offers the perfect sounding board as to how a fast-paced, immersive player career could become iconic in the gaming world.

2K Games is a developer that already implements an in-depth player career, and it's about time that EA took more time to think about the offline player.

New Star Soccer has continually proven that the appetite exists for a better individual experience - and whilst we'd hate to even think about it - we're certain that EA could even find cosmetics ways to profit from an offline mode.