FIFA 21 Critic Reviews

FIFA 21 may not contain any brand new modes or major new features, but by providing substantial changes to gameplay and introducing key improvements, it has easily positioned itself as the best FIFA yet. Combining challenging yet satisfying defending with ludicrous goal-scoring opportunities takes its on-the-pitch action to new levels, while additions to its Career, Ultimate Team, and Pro Clubs modes make this an essential purchase for football fans.

FIFA 21 improves many aspects both in and out of the pitch, offering a solid game like every year, even if it’s obvious that the big changes are being saved for the next generation.

FIFA 21 delivers solid and fun gameplay, introducing a lot of small new features in the structure build in the last two years. Even if FUT is always bigger and louder, the best things this year come from Career mode and plain multiplayer mode, where everything flows with a slower and human tempo.

FIFA 21 is a complete package that will keep football fans hooked for the entire season. Although there are only a few small improvements, the tactical possibilities that these unlock are vast. With Dual Entitlement, meaning you can transfer your progress to next-gen consoles and the fact that it's packed to the goalposts with content, FIFA 21 comfortably takes the golden boot for 2021.

FIFA 21 delivers most of what I’m looking for in a world football title, which tends to be the story every year. It features solid-to-strong gameplay, attractive visuals, and a good variety of options. However, flawed execution in VOLTA, a lack of customization and no traditional franchise mode for EPL or La Liga keeps it from being a classic.

FIFA 21 returns to a more arcady gameplay, going all in for speed and instant fun, and leaving behind last year's (if slight) search for a simulative pace. Though, it's the most refined and complete game in the series when it comes to modes and functionalities, something PES has been struggling to replicate for years.

Career mode is still a mixed bag, then, but it's reassuring that EA has made some additional moves to try and freshen it up. If you do grow tired of simming through training sessions and managing sharpness, FIFA 21 is still chock full of other stuff to do, whether you want to head to the streets of Paris to show off your skills, hop into Ultimate Team with a friend, or play through a season on Pro Clubs. This is a substantial package that's propped up by exciting gameplay that puts the onus squarely on attacking football. There are moments of frustration on defense when the balance doesn't feel quite right, but then you'll go down the other end and score a Puskás Award contender that makes you forget why you were mad in the first place.

FIFA 21 improves gameplay with much needed enhancements, but at this point we can't wait to have FIFA on next gen systems for hopefully better physics and animations. Anyway, the package is full of content, and FIFA 21 is the essential Football game for lovers of the sport.

FIFA 21 brings an enjoyable list of new features across all its game modes, but if you were hoping for something really new in the gameplay you will probably need to wait for the nextgen.

FIFA 21 is an often great football game packed with content and modes. The few gameplay tweaks that are here make for a better overall experience and keeping Volta around adds some variety. Sadly, the redesign of career mode focuses on the wrong features and feels like a wannabe Football Manager without any of the depth.

FIFA 21 is a good, but simple enhancement. Everything is at its right place: FUT, Volta and the other game modes are as they should be, with small adjustments. The career mode has gotten the most attention, and it shows.

On the pitch, FIFA 21 is an incremental improvement over FIFA 20, but doesn't address some of the biggest issues with defending and the high-scoring matches this leads to. With Volta still missing a certain spark and Ultimate Team not really changing much, it's the Football Manager-inspired Career mode that takes the biggest step forward. It's still a good football game, but it feels like the real focus is on next-gen.

FIFA 21 is an exercise of refinement, not evolution. The newest installment highlights the downsides of annualization, but also highlights that EA is listening to fans. FIFA 21 doesn’t make a million changes and improvements from FIFA 20, but the changes and improvements it does make go a long way in enhancing the experience.

FIFA 21 follows the formula of its predecessors, with a few changes within a widely consolidated game structure. It’s fun, but it’s not a huge step forward from the past years.

Whatever your pleasure, Fifa 21 is off to a strong start. If you’ve played Fifa in the last few years, you’ll have no trouble picking it up and scoring for fun, and if you want to dig deeper, there’s a ton of new stuff to learn and the endless siren call of regular Ultimate Team events to keep you coming back, even in the absence of any massive new features. Football has been hard to enjoy in 2020, but Fifa 21 certainly makes it easier.

Years go by and look the same, but this year it really feels like EA Sports has taken into account the community's feedback for its new opus. Right now FIFA 21 is a very good game, but the big question is, "Will it stay so as the season progresses?" Only time will tell, just hoping that the updates don't alter the current gameplay of FIFA 21 too much, which is pretty good. The new features in the different game modes are a real plus and maybe that's what we as football fans expected. FIFA 21 is a good game, with very interesting content. EA Sports now has all the cards in hand to keep it that way throughout the season.

FIFA 21 is not FIFA 20: Part 2. It isn't a complete reboot of the franchise either, and nor does it need to be. EA has also done more than "just enough" to set itself apart from last year's game. This is something developers of games that release annually can be guilty of. It feels different, and for anyone who doesn't agree with that, Volta feels like a whole new game within the main game for a completely fresh experience this year. Yes, it might be a stepping stone, but it's just the stepping stone FIFA needs to bridge the gap between this generation and the next.

Even if the differences between FIFA 20 and FIFA 21 aren't that substantial, FIFA 21 is exactly what it needs to be: That fun football game that you fire up after a long day at work, crack open a beer and play with your buddies at home. And it does that triumphantly.

Scoring by delivering a through pass to a sprinting player is a great feeling, but with too many options for the attacking player, it can become difficult to defend against so many different attack patterns. This results in too many goals for a realistic soccer game.

The graphics and gameplay of FIFA 21 deliver fun and functional football, but its ambitions don’t extend far beyond that. Over time, the grinding leads to burnout and boredom, and the gear and rewards you’re working so hard to obtain are rarely satisfying enough to make the chase worthwhile. Nailing the fundamentals is important, but it takes more than that to be a real winner.