In 1993, Electronic Arts debuted FIFA International Soccer, its vision of the most popular sport on Earth. Since then, the series has been extremely successful but also highly criticized for its many faults. Numerous of these arguments against FIFA are on point, so it was hard for us to pick just the top ten. As we still play FIFA, this article aims not to speak against it but to hopefully point out the things that need improvement.

10. Limited Graphics Appeal

Since FIFA 17, EA has used a Frostbite Engine, but it feels outdated in the PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X era. To be honest, FIFA never had awe-inspiring graphics, and this includes player likeness. While the biggest stars look like they should, everyone else suffers to some extent. Even though we know it's challenging to take care of thousands of players, Pro Evolution Soccer is still doing it better.

What we also need to see is more stadium detail and huge improvements to the lighting engine. As the current console generation and PCs GPUs support ray tracing, now is the time to do it! Great graphics are essential for FIFA and sports games in general, as it's all about creating a more realistic atmosphere. Unfortunately, the series has so far failed spectacularly.

9. Lack of Care For PC Gamers

Whenever a new console generation arrives, this negatively impacts FIFA players on PC. For example, until FIFA 23, FIFA games on Windows were the same as on PS4 or Xbox One! This means that PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X/S owners get the premium experience for the same price. Usually, we are talking about superior graphics but also additional gameplay features.

What's even more rage-inducing is when EA explains that PC players don't have good enough hardware to run the next-gen version. In practice, this makes no sense since they could always let gamers customize the graphics and lower the detail if they have fps issues. Unfortunately, this awful practice is common to other sports series, including Madden NFL and NBA 2K.

8. Controversial Licensing Deals

FIFA owns exclusive licenses to some of the best soccer leagues, including the English Premier League, Spanish La Liga, or German Bundesliga. It's not hard to see that it's the main reason why the series is so popular and much more successful than Pro Evolution Soccer. Even during its darkest days, FIFA was selling much better than its only rival, which won't change in the foreseeable future.

However, the problem is that FIFA fails to license even some of the teams playing the UEFA Champions League, and it ignores many notable leagues around the world while featuring others that are barely professional. For example, does anyone outside of Ireland plays as Derry City FC? Also, why can't we have legendary teams like in NBA 2K series? Yes, we get some incredible stars of the past like Maradona, Pele, Gullit, Rijkaard, and many others, but only to use them in FIFA Ultimate Team Mode.

7. Limited Customization

In the past couple of years, Konami and Pro Evolution Soccer series are fighting back, as they manage to get some exclusive licenses as well. For example, FIFA can't use names, logos, and kits for some of the teams such as Juventus or many others around the world. That's a huge problem because FIFA isn't allowing us to customize teams, as you can only create a club in the career mode. 

What's even worse, FIFA eliminated its Creation Center feature, where you could make the content on the web and easily put it in the game. Of course, you could also browse from thousands of teams and leagues all over the world, no matter how obscure they were. Now, the best you can do is find some excellent mods like FIFA Classic Patch for the old FIFA games.

6. Player and Team Individuality

Did you know that it took the FIFA series five years before it introduced players of different heights? Unfortunately, player individuality is still an issue in the FIFA series. While in Pro Evolution Soccer, you can easily identify stars and superstars by their moves, in FIFA, that's much harder. Of course, it's a monumental task to make tens of thousands of unique players, but having most of them so generic is a problem.

Unfortunately, the same goes for the teams. If you play a league, you'll see that all clubs employ pretty much the same tactics. While players can change that by customizing game plans via sliders, that's something that developers should have done.

5. Career Mode Is Just There

Even though Career Mode in FIFA is popular, the company barely upgrades it for a decade now. Even worse, the mode is often broken beyond repair, which even sparked a trend on Twitter. So, why is EA Sports so lethargic about it? The answer is simple, as they don't make money from it!

The company is putting all of its resources in FIFA Ultimate Team, which generates millions, so if you don't like this mode, you're out of luck. However, the publisher is recently under huge pressure, so let's cross our fingers and hope that FIFA for the current generation of consoles will make huge advances. Anything less will be a disgrace.

4. Lack of Improvements

The new version of FIFA comes every year, so developers don't have much time to make huge changes. However, that's not an excuse, as the company could simply create a DLC as Konami did with Pro Evolution Soccer in 2020. Even if you are a passionate FIFA player, you'll have a hard time noticing some of the listed changes, as they often feel like a placebo.

Even worse, changes are often degrading gameplay, sending EA Sports into panic mode, as they release tons of patches. Sometimes, the situation becomes rather embarrassing, like in FIFA 21, which is a high-scoring festival with pretty dumb defensive AI. Finally, FIFA sometimes radically changes decent gameplay elements, like free-kicks. We guess that's easier than to do what players are demanding for a decade – fix the passing!

3. Gameplay Weirdness

Even the biggest FIFA fans won't tell you that the series is pure simulation. That's very evident, judging by many gameplay elements which fail to be improved since the days of PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360. We've already mentioned the passing game, but there is so much else that's not OK. Even after so many years, the developers are struggling with ball physics or the way your AI teammates move on the field.

Defenders and their reactions are probably the strangest, as they range from idiotic to superhuman-like. For example, they may let you easily pass them, but at the same time, they'll produce tons of goal-line saves or block pretty much every shot in the penalty box. It is no wonder that EA Sports had to make a statement, denying rubber-banding in FIFA.

2. Scamming the Players

Imagine this scenario, which is among the worst practices in gaming industry. You were really hyped for Cyberpunk 2077, to the point you bought it on day one. However, soon after, you've realized it's a buggy mess that's barely playable on PS4 or Xbox One. Or, maybe you bought a crappy game that's beyond repair and thought it couldn't get any worse. Oh, but it could be – just ask EA and their habit of selling you the same FIFA game for years!

 What they do is sell so-called Legacy Editions, as they did with FIFA 14 and FIFA 15 for PS Vita. What "Legacy Edition" means is that you get the same game as last year, only with updated rosters! As you can imagine, the packaging is not clearly saying that, so many people are buying it, not realizing they've been scammed. Unfortunately, this awful practice continued on Nintendo Switch. Even worse, some FIFA games are carbon copies of the previous version, and they weren't even branded as Legacy Edition!

1. Microtransactions Are Killing the Game

For many years now, FIFA Ultimate Team (FUT) has been the main FIFA mode simply because it contains microtransactions. Forming a decent team to compete online is a lesson in grinding, as it's tough to get some of the best players in the game. Consequently, desperate players are buying FIFA points to speed up the process, and we can't blame them for that. However, that turns this mode into Pay-to-win and generates hundreds of millions of dollars for EA Sports.

We can hear you saying that you don't care about FUT, but it's not so simple. You see, because this mode is so profitable, the company is spending most of its resources on it. This awful practice main generator of many other problems we've mentioned, including gameplay, career mode, player individuality, or the general lack of improvements. While some countries are putting an end to this legalized gambling for minors, we're not sure that the end result will benefit the players.

Playing FIFA is a love-hate relationship, and our top ten list expresses that. What's clear is that FIFA will continue to ignore many of its issues without pressure from players, governments, and competition. That's why everyone needs to start sending the right message with their wallets. It seems this is the only thing that Electronic Arts will understand.

What was your first FIFA game? What are some of the top issues you have with the series?

Cover photo: TopTens archive