Win the Ballon d'Or in EA Sports FC 24's Career Mode

The most prestigious individual honour in football, the Ballon d’Or, is coming to EA Sports FC 24 as part of its single player campaign. Teased in a Career Mode deep dive trailer, the team touched upon how it wants to make the mode more rewarding, with additional cutscenes showing you winning awards and celebrating with team mates. The cinematics will only be available on new-gen consoles like PS5, but they look great.

This is all part of an overall evolution to both Manager Career and Player Career. In the former, you’ll need to select an all-encompassing coaching philosophy, and hire staff to help you execute it. This means you can choose to implement schemes like Gegenpressing or Tiki-taka, depending on your tastes. New camera angles will also allow you to observe the action from the stands or the sidelines, where you’ll be able to make tactical adjustments a la Football Manager.

Meanwhile, in Player Career, in addition to working towards individual honours, you’ll also be able to develop your personality to unlock Playstyles. These are new gameplay-focused perks which buff certain abilities, and are also used on real-life players in both Kick Off and Ultimate Team. Depending on your progress and decision-making, you’ll be able to unlock elite skills, which will make you among the best players in the world.

While we wouldn’t describe this year’s improvements to Career Mode as dramatic, it’s clear that EA Sports is iterating on years past and adding more depth and flexibility to both the Manager Career and Player Career. All of this should help make for a more fulfilling single player experience – especially as the game continues to blur the lines between Football Manager and traditional FIFA gameplay. We like the direction things are moving in, then, and we’re looking forward to testing out all the new features later in the year.