The Next Frontier in FIFA Soccer: AI Management

Presentation, check. Player control, check. Defending, check. Player AI, check.

For the last couple of years, FIFA has improved upon almost every aspect of its game. Unsurprisingly, for a franchise that is steadfastly trying to simulate a realistic brand of football, most of these elements became deeper and more nuanced as a result. However, there’s one thing that’s crucially missing from the list: AI Management.

Now, it’s not the sexiest thing to market. You can’t see it, and possibly only a percentage of us who play the game will appreciate it. I try not to write these “wishlist” articles too frequently, but for a hardcore sports gaming site like OS, it seems apt to suggest some improvements for how the game can improve on its gameplay experience by giving its CPU managers a little more smarts. The problem with FIFA's existing CPU management is that it seems to operate inside a vacuum, meaning that its moves are usually preprogrammed to trigger at some basic benchmarks, without taking into account the entire context of what's going on in the match. And if that isn't the case, it surely isn't obvious enough, because as it stands, the CPU management in FIFA just feels a little shallow, especially when compared to the rest of the game's impressive depth.

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